Posted by
zapdoodat on Tuesday, January 29, 2008 3:03:53 AM
Too many Conservatives are eschewing our responsibility when it comes to the defense cuts in the 1990’s. Has anyone ever heard "Bill Clinton used the peace dividend to cut the defense budget" or "Clinton Administration defense cuts cut too much?" This nonsense. I mean, what was he, a dictator or something?
Guess who was Speaker of the House from 1994-2000. You got it, Newt Gingrich himself. Which must mean that the Republicans controlled congress.
Article I, section 8, says "The Congress shall have the power to lay and collect taxes....to provide for the Common defense and general Welfare of the United States". Newt controlled the outlays for the Department of Defense while he was Speaker of the House. We Conservatives need to look at the problems of the past with eyes wide open in order to solve the problems of the future.
In case anyone might say that those defense cuts came in 1993 and 1994 before the Republican Revolution, well, let’s take a look at Newt’s “Contract with America.”
His concerns in 1993 are spelled out below:
The National Security Restoration Act
An act to prevent U.S. troops from serving under United Nations command unless the president determines it is necessary for the purposes of national security, to cut US payments for UN peacekeeping operations, and to help establish guidelines for the voluntary integration of former Warsaw Pact nations into NATO.
Breathless stuff in our age of terrorism isn’t it? Stating that our troops should not serve under foreign command. Big deal, that has been our policy for 200 years. Cut payments for UN peacekeeping operations. Isn’t it our policy now to get the UN and NATO as neck deep as we are into the war on terror in the Middle East.
We conservatives should put the responsibility where the responsibility should really lay.