Conservative leader attacks Romney-Ryan for refusing to cut the military budget
by Justin Raimondo, August 15, 2012
Print This | Share This Grover Norquist is a bit of a punching bag for both the Hollywood-DC left and the neoconservative right. On the left, hes often held up as an example of everything thats supposedly wrong with the conservative movement and the GOP: his no tax hike pledge is excoriated by the Huffingtonpost-MSNBC-TPM axis of Obamaism as typical of know-nothing conservatism. On the neocon right, hes viciously attacked as an Islamist, a secret member of the Muslim Brotherhood far more dangerous than, say, Huma Abedin in part because hes an influential conservative married to an Arab woman. For both groups, hes a bit of a Rasputin, with his weekly meetings of Washington-based conservative activists characterized as something between the right-wing equivalent of the Bilderbergs (or is that Bilderbergers?) and Opus Dei.
Now hes gone and done something bound to induce paroxysms of rage or disbelief in members of both groups: hes denouncing the newly-minted Republican ticket particularly Paul Ryan and his infamous budget for refusing to countenance cuts in the military, and hes doing it in style. In a talk given at the Center for the National Interest (formerly the Nixon Center), he ripped into Ryan for refusing to consider cuts in the military budget.
First, some background: The Budget Control Act, passed in 2011, calls for sequestration, i.e. across-the-board cuts in both military and domestic spending in order to (eventually, in theory) balance the federal budget. The usual suspects have been decrying this, especially Republican hawks like Lindsey Graham and the powerful Buck McKeon, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, who want to increase military spending. Their solution? Close tax loopholes and end deductions to avoid sequestration. To our Washington grandees, any income they allow you to keep for yourself is a loophole, since they own you, body and soul and they will close it if the alternative is giving up another war in the Middle East.
Norquist throws down the gauntlet at these spendthrift imperialists: We can afford to have an adequate national defense which keeps us free and safe and keeps everybody afraid to throw a punch at us, as long as we dont make some of the decisions that previous administrations have, which is to over extend ourselves overseas and think we can run foreign governments. Washington cant give marching orders to its own citizens with much effect, he averred, so why do we think we can do it in faraway Afghanistan?
He takes aim squarely at the Ryan budget, which has been adopted by the House GOP and is now at the center of the presidential campaign, characterizing it as typical of the Graham-McKeon spend-spend-spend mentality, which is an echo of the Bush years. Ryans proposed budget would increase military spending by $20 billion and is bereft of cost-cutting reforms. As Norquist put it:
Other people need to lead the argument on how can conservatives lead a fight to have a serious national defense without wasting money. I wouldnt ask Ryan to be the reformer of the defense establishment.
Even in purely domestic terms Ryans budget is a farce: it projects a balanced budget in thirty years, and politically its a joke. Hes basically telling American voters they have to give up their Medicare and other benefits so that we can ensure the eternal prosperity of the military-industrial complex and maintain our overseas empire. And while Ryan is handing out goodies to the Pentagon, Graham and McKeon are saying can we steal all your deductions and credits and give it to the appropriators. The idea is that you are going to raise taxes on people to not think through defense priorities.
Ah, but we know what are the priorities of politicians like Sen. Graham, he who hailed the liberation of Libya and his now agitating for overt US intervention in Syria. To the Grahams of this world, the slightest hesitation to meddle in the worlds many trouble spots is isolationism. In the US Senate, he and John McCain and Joe Lieberman function as the three harpies of perpetual war: whenever an opportunity comes up for increased American meddling, there is Lindsey the Conqueror, and his cohorts, butching it up for the cameras. He could care less about balancing the budget unless its on the backs of little old ladies living on all the cat food their tiny Social Security checks can buy.
