Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, March 28, 1995 TAG: 9503280033
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-7 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: COLLEEN REDMAN
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
It's not that I don't know where I stand on gun control, but that complicated issues today are not simple yes or no, for or against, problems. More likely they are yes, but ... no, but ...
Politicians and the mainstream media continue to address problems as separate, when in fact they almost always overlap. Rarely does anyone put the whole thing together - you know, like the knee bone is connected to the leg bone.
Treating each problem as a cause that needs a cure, rather than a symptom of a larger problem, obscures the larger problem. The state of our military is an example. In practically every instance, whether it be the environment, the deficit, taxes, crime, gun control, welfare reform and even abortion, the military figures in, but is mysteriously missing from the debate on "what is wrong with America and how do we fix it."
Let's briefly look at how the military is related to some of these issues that concern Americans today.
TAXES: Though we are not at war, the Cold War is over, and we already have the largest weapons arsenal in the world, we continue to spend more money on the military than at the height of World War II, when we were fighting one war in Europe and another in the Pacific. We out-spend every other country, militarily, by a large margin.
When the military budget grew to the point that it was an embarrassment, Social Security, which was never a federal budget item, was added to the budget pie - even though Social Security is raised and spent separately from income taxes. This has fooled people ever since into believing that the military budget is 25-30 percent of the federal budget. In fact, particularly when you count past expenditures (veterans benefits and the military portion of the debt) it's more like 60 percent. This is where most of our taxes go. Americans who resent tax increases should put the blame where it really belongs.
THE DEFICIT: According to The War Resisters League, 80 percent of the deficit is due to military spending, which rose to an all-time high under the Reagan and Bush administrations. These administrations, being Republican, didn't want to raise taxes to pay for their excessive military spending so they spent money we didn't have.
Today, Clinton and Gore, in an effort to reduce the deficit, avoid raising taxes and "reinvent government," have cut into social/domestic programs, and trimmed some government excesses. But what about the excessive military budget? Not only does military spending under Clinton-Gore remain at Cold-War levels, they propose to increase spending this year.
Military cuts have not been part of the deficit-reduction debate, though military expenses are largely responsible for it.
WELFARE: Rather than cut into any social program, we should look to the military first for cuts, since it is the largest drain on our resources. Every dollar spent on military is money not there for Americans in need. Welfare is in the mere 1 percent range of the federal budget. Compare that to the military budget.
Also, why should we begrudge investing in people in need (mostly mothers and children) when corporations get government handouts regularly by way of development incentives, grants, subsidies, tax exemptions, loan financing (remember the Disney deal)? Sounds like a double standard to me.
CRIME: We're building more prisons than in any other time in U.S. history, but crime keeps going up. We don't have money for rehabilitation, parole programs, job training or education to reform prisoners, but we have money for more prisons. The death penalty, the war on drugs (which fills the prisons with nonviolent offenders) and the increase in prisons as an answer to crime comprise a domestic version of militarism. And like the military, the solution is limited in its effectiveness (hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians dead and Saddam still in power is an example of how limited military solutions can be) - and very expensive.
What kind of example does a government set for its citizens when it is the No. 1 arms seller in the world and holds the largest weapons arsenal in history? What kind of message does this give to inner-city kids?
GUN CONTROL: Why should Americans lay down their weapons when the government has no gun controls on itself?
Our founding fathers, who took up arms against their own government, understood the need for citizens to protect themselves from governmental corruption and oppression, and so included "checks and balances" and "the right to bear arms" in our American Bill of Rights. They also warned against militarism as we know it today: "Standing armies in time of peace are inconsistent with the principles of republican government, dangerous to the liberties of free people, and generally converted into destructive engines for establishing despotism." (Continental Congress 1784)
Yes, I'd like to see semi-automatic handguns banned, along with the Trident Missile B2-bomber, and a host of other weapons of mass destruction.
THE ENVIRONMENT: Many of the nation's worst toxic-waste problems occur at military bases, where the testing, manufacture and maintenance of weapons have resulted in pollution of local environments. The Department of Defense has identified 10,439 suspected hazardous-waste sites on active U.S. military installations. Through fiscal year 1993, the DOD invested about $7.9 billion in contamination cleanup of 571 sites, according to the Center for Defense Information. This is another cost that should be attributed to military spending. More important, it is another hazard to life that the military presents.
ABORTION: Where were all the pro-life advocates when many thousands of Iraqi children were killed as a result of our bombing during the Gulf War? (Many more continue do die due to sanctions.) Pro-lifers should be standing up for education, health care, welfare and other investments in children's lives - and denouncing the military that robs from these programs and threatens life. The fervor with which pro-life advocates fight for the rights of a fetus make the apathy around child hunger, homelessness, abuse and poverty even more disturbing.
Arms sales also contribute to larger military budgets. As we sell more arms overseas, we justify spending more on arms at home to protect ourselves from small countries with growing weapons arsenals. (Remember Iraq.) As we spend more on our military arsenal, other countries follow suit for their own sense of protection.
As long as weapons remain a big business, as long as political and economic forces - rather than military logic - dictate military spending and policy, the world will continue to be more unsafe and robbed of resources. The recent announcement that the United States will allow arms sales to 10 countries in the former Eastern bloc and continued arms sales to Middle Eastern countries suggests business as usual.
The military capabilities of the United States today and for the foreseeable future exceed by a huge margin the capabilities of any other nation in the world. Serious cuts in military spending can be made without any loss to our defense capability. Unfortunately, the Pentagon, military contractors and members of Congress work hard to justify Cold-War levels of spending for jobs and profit. But who profits?
The Republican Congress wants to scale down government by cutting housing and school-lunch programs, etc., but still have us foot the big pork barrel-military bill. This bill, more than $250 billion a year, is money that could be better used dealing with our social and economic problems, which are every bit as important to national security as defense is.
Whether we raise taxes or cut benefits, the American people suffer. We bear the burden, financially, environmentally and morally, for our oversized military. It's time we demanded more than token cuts into the "U.S. Sacred Cow," also known as the military.
Colleen Redman is a writer who lives in Floyd.
by CNB