Yesterday, President Obama declared that in addition to solving all of the country’s other ills that he was going to eliminate government waste. His target—defense spending. “I want to focus on one particular example, and that is the situation in defense contracting.”
This was a speech I long expected. Our government should, of course, take every responsible measure to ensure it is a good steward of our tax dollars and provide the best support for our men and women in uniform. But, I suspect that is not what is going on here. And here is why. Government already has lots of tools available to fight fraud, waste, and abuse. They just have to use them. Doing the kinds of reform the president’s suggest will actually add more bureaucracy to the process—making the ways government buys things less not more efficient. So why is the president making these promises—I suspect it is cover to just cut defense spending—and then claim those cuts are really savings.
There are real ways to make the way the Pentagon buys things more efficient. We outlined them in a Heritage paper (Defense Spending Fraud, Waste, and Abuse: Hype, Reality, and Real Solutions) months ago because we suspected the new administration would try a tactic just like this.
The bottom line is any money we save through reform should be plowed back into the military budget to buy the stuff our troops need—not to cut the Pentagon budget.
Ironically, if the president did really want to focus on combating fraud, waste, and abuse, he has a real legitimate target—his 700 billion dollars plus stimulus package that plans push way more money than the Pentagon spends in year out the door in no time or less.
Determining if yesterday's speech was a waste depends upon who directed that it be given – and why. This speech came out of the "oldies closet", and in my view for the purpose of adding to the other distractions (Limbaugh/Steele) that the cabal of Emmanuel, Stephenopolous, Carville, Begala have cooked up to keep our eye off the real subject. John McCain always on the alert for an ego-expanding experience was only too happy to be trotted out for the atmospherics of it all.
The real subject of course is the O-ministration's serious intentions to move the country from our market driven freedoms to a social democracy. They wish to avoid a real debate because as yet only a hand-full of patriots see this struggle in all its true colors. I include Limbaugh among those who sees this as a true ideological struggle where none other than American freedom is the prize.
Please use your platform to keep the conversation focused on the real issues.
Why can we not stop any of this? We see what he
is doing, but all we do is talk about it! Something has to be done! We have to find a way to say "NO" to all of this. There has to be a
mass protest on Washington or is it time for we the people to have a Tea Party? We cannot go on
much longer watching our freedoms and our country
destroyed. This man works for us. If we do not
like what he is doing he needs to know that. You
people at the Heritage Group are the SMARETEST
and the best. If you don't know what our options
are legally than we are a dying nation. Please
try to come up with something to make President
Obama understand that all of this is just a
financial burden on us, our children, our grandchildren and their children and grandchildren. Please let me know what I can do
to help you help the American people.
Absolutely right! If they want to fight waste, just look the Stimulus Bill and new budget he submitted. Also, the argument can be made this is an answer to the critics that are complaining about all the waste and spending he is and is planning to do. He now can say that is trying to work on it, which is BS. Also, it seems this is diversion from the real issue, which is a tactic Obama uses from the real issue, over spending and excessive debt.
http://franklinslocke.blogspot.com/
Distract the enemy. The President believes Americans are dumb, don't know any better, don't care. It is a bit peculiar that when there is spin to be had, Mr. Chief of Staff hits the speed dial and calls Begala, Carville, and George S. from ABC. Truly amazing. The President is intent on creating a caste system. I need to start daily novena's as prayer seems the only way out of this mess.