If you refuse to acknowledge that there is any waste that can be culled from the military budget, you are a big-government conservative, and you cannot lay claim to balancing the budget.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
The military budget must reflect the threats we face, rather than the budget defining those threats.
I have spoken to Donald Trump about this. He understands the dramatic budget cuts our military has faced.
The administration has a disturbing pattern of behavior when it comes to budgeting not only for the ongoing operations in Iraq and Afghanistan but also for military requirements not directly related to these conflicts.
There is no real justification for a requirement that a budget of any sort should be balanced, except as a rallying point for those who seek to hamstring government.
I am a small-government conservative who clings tenaciously and old-fashionedly to the idea that one ought to have balanced budgets.
We cannot allow anything that's called 'national defense' to justify any and all spending. We need to be very, very careful that we don't overspend and say, 'Oh, that's defense,' when perhaps it isn't.
We want to make sure the military gets it right and understands that if they're going to have less money, they're going to have to spend it a lot more smartly.
We're going to have to raise revenues in some form or fashion, and we're going to have to cut spending, including entitlements of all kind, including the military. We all know this. Lets get on with it.
At Concerned Veterans for America, we've made the case that the defense budget could be targeted for spending reform, but in a targeted fashion that genuinely changes unsustainable spending trajectories while preserving U.S. defense capacity.
You want to balance the budget in this country? We change the salary structure for Congress and the President. Every year they don't balance the budget, we don't pay them.
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