June 14, 2011

Misplaced priorities

I find myself once again agreeing with P.Z. Myers. Over at his blog Pharyngula, he comments on Joe Biden listing examples of what he considers government waste. While there is unavoidable truth in what Joe says, it only serves to illustrate how messed up this whole debate is. Biden talks about a website the gov't, for whatever reason, has dedicated to the Desert Tortoise. A project which costs the taxpayers a whopping $125 per year. More on that if you're interested here.

With our defense budget larger than all the rest of the developed world combined, Joe is gonna cure the deficit by eliminating a $125 website. We now have two and a half wars going on, military bases 'round the world and the world's largest navy. But do we hear any serious discussion about reducing military spending? Oh sure, they say they are going to stop using so many paper clips at the Pentagon, and the on again off again new engines that nobody, including the Air Force wants for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter are currently off again. (I think.) But nobody is talking about closing down unneeded bases in Europe, or Japan, or the Phillipines, or Korea, or dog knows where else. No one's seriously talking yet about ending our involvement in Iraq, Afghanistan, or Pakistan. Hell, we just decided that Libya was a neat place to waste money, and now I hear we've got troops in Yemen. I just listened to McCain bloviating about the need to back up the poor Syrians as well.

In the words of John Boehner: "We're broke!" If so, where in the treasury is the secret compartment with the money to pay for these excursions?

Obviously, there isn't one. We'll just have to steal it from Social Security, Medicare, and those damned Desert Tortoises.

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