The POTUS has said he's going to ask for another $1.2 Trillion debt increase. That's $1200 Billion or $1,200,000 Million. It seems that Trillion is just such an unfathomable number that it seems imaginary to those who are being given the bill: the taxpayers. Unlike prior debt increases, Congress doesn't have to approve this one. All they have to do is not fly back to Washington and oppose it. Yeah, they agreed to that when they agreed to have the "Supercommittee" solve the spending crisis last year.
Hillary and others in the Administration have called these budget deficits the most dangerous National Security issue we face, but they just can't seem to figure out how to stop spending like drunken college kids on their parent's credit cards. Many politicians have been accused of "tax & spend" policies, but this Administration has preferred to spend first and tax later. They figure if the Nation is in enough financial crisis, the taxpayers will take their bitter medicine, that the opposition will approve higher taxes.
But how did we get to a $15 Trillion dollar Federal Debt? Partially, it was a $Billion or two at a time. During Reagan's years, after 200 years of Federal Debt, he was asking for increases of, on average, less than $110 Billion each. It was only in the 1980's that the Total Federal Debt exceeded $1 Trillion. As he re-built Our Military and bankrupted the Soviet Empire in the arms race, America attained the position of the most technologically advanced and best trained military in the world, capable of defeating the Communist Hordes that were threatening Europe. After 40 years of Communist Imperial expansion, the Cold War enemy lost ground to Freedom for the first time in Grenada. At the end of his 8 years, the Federal Debt stood at $2.85 Trillion. The tide had turned in El Salvador to democracy. Nicaragua's Communist Dictatorship was falling. And Americans found their pride again.
In less than 3 years, the current Administration has asked for and received more debt in a single year than the entire first 213 years of the Nation. In fact, this Administration has asked for and received 3x as much in Debt than the first 200 years of the Nation took to build.
But Bush Sr., was bolder than Reagan. He asked for debt ceiling increases on average of $224 Billion at a time. In the first half of his Administration, we still had the Cold War going on, and as Soviet Empire crumbled, Saddam invaded Kuwait, which launched Desert Storm to expel the invaders of our ally. For the next 10 years, partisans would ask me why we didn't "finish the job" in Iraq. Saddam was still a thorn in our side, but the fact was that the mission in Desert Storm was to expel him from Kuwait, not to remove him from power. It took us 100 hours, with the Military that Reagan had re-built. There were 500,000 American Troops on the ground and on ships in the Persian Gulf.
Bush Sr then said it was time to cash in the "Peace Dividend," to cut our Military Spending and Force, since there was no apparent power in the world that could challenge Our Troops, and we were supposed to be entering a new period of World Peace. He significantly cut the number of Troops stationed in Europe, specifically those awaiting invasion through the Fulda Gap in Germany, from 250,000 to 125,000.
It turns out that it costs a LOT of money to give Military Bases to Municipalities and States. The Budgets under Clinton had to pay for the Hundreds of Millions of dollars to give them away, while simultaneously building new facilities for the bases the remaining Troops would be moved to. Clinton decided not to just cash in the "Peace Dividend" but to sell the Stock that was paying it. He cut the Military by another 20%, over what Bush Sr. had proposed.
That didn't mean smaller Defense Budgets. It meant fewer Troops and that Clerks were transferred to DoD Union Civilian Employees. It meant that cooks were contracted out. It meant that medical staff were hired as Civilians instead of recruited into the Officer Corps. It meant a lot of Union Construction projects and less Military Training. One of my friends at the time had gone over to the Officer side of the house. He couldn't even get the Army to buy camouflage face paint for his Troops in the field.
Clinton asked for increases in the debt ceiling of $451 Billion at a shot, on average. By the end of his Administration, the National Debt had doubled from the end of Reagan's era, to $5.95 Trillion. What had taken 213 years to borrow, had been doubled in just 12 years of Bush Sr. and Clinton, while the Defense Budget was squandered giving away the bases the Army needs to train and scrapping the ships the Navy needed to patrol the high seas. The debt would have accelerated quicker, but the American People elected an opposition Congress based on Newt Gingrich's "Contract with America," that promised and delivered in cutting spending, and protecting the Military from a further hollowing out.
We often hear that "Clinton balanced the budget," but it was the unwillingness of political opponents; Newt's Congress and the Clinton Administration to fund the other's pet projects, that slowed spending. Many confuse a balanced budget with lack of debt, but a balanced budget only means we are not going further in debt, not that the debt was paid off. At the end of the Clinton Administration, the National Debt was a bit more than a 1/3rd of what it is today, and twice what it was at the end of the Reagan Era. It was 6x as much as it had been when Carter had left office, but none had requested chunks of Trillion Dollar increases, not yet.
Bush Jr. would be challenged early in office. Clinton's term had left the economy spent. The dot.com bubble had just burst and Congressional mandates to extend home loans to those that couldn't afford them hadn't yet put the housing market on fire. In March 2001, just 2 months into his term, the Clinton Recession started. And just as the economy was recovering, Al-Qaeda attacked on 9/11/01. Clinton had spent his DoD money on Union Construction projects and giving away Military Bases. The Army didn't have Body Armor and didn't have Armored HumVees.
General Shinseki had cut out Armored Personnel Carriers and bought Chinese made Black Berets, for everyone, times two. Even the Army's boots were of Viet Nam style. General Shinseki had decided against modern boots of the same cost. Instead, he had changed the shade of Army dress uniforms, so slightly that only if two were side by side could anyone tell the difference. It was the Troops responsibility to buy the new shade, to the tune of Hundreds of Dollars, per Soldier. After he demoralized the Army and retired, the current Administration appointed him as Secretary of Veterans' Affairs, where he has pressed for and gotten approval of Veterans to pay for their own Combat Injuries, more and more.
So, when we went to war in Afghanistan, there weren't enough cargo planes to get the Troops and Equipment there. There were less than 100 Armored HumVees in the entire Army. There were less than 1000 sets of Body Armor. And training ammunition for the range was at a premium. It all had to be bought. Often, equipment had to be bought, after it was designed for the first time.
The Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq not only presented new challenges, such as counter-IED protective measures, but also old ones, such as how to avoid friendly fire. In the first two years of the War in Afghanistan, we had killed more of Our Own Troops, by accident, than the enemy had killed of Our Troops. Nevermind that 'friendly fire' incidents were down significantly from previous wars, they were the biggest percentage of losses, and the people wanted it fixed.
The solutions cost a LOT of money. Blue Force Tracker integrated GPS mapping technology, satellite text messaging, and showed Commanders and units on the ground where all other friendly forces on the battlefield were. It costs tens of thousands of dollars per unit, down to 4 man teams. To Armor those HumVees, a better engine, better transmission, better brakes, and better shocks had to be designed and built to get the old steeds up the hills with 5x the weight and fewer Troops. It cost Billions.
But while the Armored HumVees were very effective against bullets, Troops were still sometimes killed or injured by the most powerful of IED's. The Iranians were even pumping EFP's (exposively formed projectiles) into Iraq as fast as they could produce them. For the heavy IED's, the MRAP was designed and delivered in record time, at a cost of hundreds of thousands per vehicle. External, specialized Armor, was bought and hung on it, in order to counter the more deadly EFP's. Specialized equipment was designed and installed to counter the primary means of detonation being used in Iraq.
And the American people were in an outrage that the Troops didn't have 30 lbs of body armor on. American factories cranked it up to full capacity and still couldn't field body armor fast enough to make up for years of neglect to equip our Troops. At thousands of dollars a piece, the new stuff became outdated as fast as it was produced, and Congressmen pressed for new camouflage patterns quicker than the old could be fielded. The Army went from BDU's to DCU's to ACU's to Multi-cams, which look a lot like the old BDU's, in just a few years. The Navy got their very own urban digital uniforms, which blend in very well with water and hence can't be used while at sea. Representative Jack Murtha, who demanded the Army purchase new uniforms, eventually got an Award from the Obama Appointee to head up the Navy.
To pay for this equipment, Planes, Jets, Body Armor, Blue Force Trackers, Armored HumVees, then MRAP's, that wasn't bought on Clinton's watch, as well as coax the political opposition in Congress into compliance, with pork spending, cost a LOT of money. Though the DoD Budget wasn't increased dramatically, Bush Jr. went to Congress asking on average for $766 Billion increases in the Debt Ceiling. The increases in Spending were smaller than in previous wars, under Roosevelt, under Truman, under JFK, and under Johnson, and even less than they had been under Reagan, in winning the Cold War. We've fought two wars for 10 years, on less money than any of those, in real terms, and with far fewer Troops. As a percentage of GDP, we were only spending 4.3% at the peak of the wars, on National Defense, compared to north of 6% to maintain the peace in the 80's.
Nevertheless, the National Debt nearly doubled under Bush Jr. from what Clinton had finished with. Junior's last Fiscal Budget was a record deficit. Almost a Half Trillion dollar shortfall. Now, some will blame Junior for the 2009 deficit, but all of the money spent in 2009 was approved by Obama. Nancy Pelosi controlled the House in 2008 and Harry Reid controlled the Senate. The junior Senator from Illinois made a special trip to the White House, taking time out from the Everlasting Campaign, to campaign for the TARP bill, spending $787 Billion tax dollars to bail out the banks, and directly benefiting Obama's biggest fundraiser, Warren Buffett. He stayed there until Harry Reid told him he was too young to be at the table. Without that $787 Billion extra, the 2009 Deficit would not have reached $1 Trillion for the first time ever. Without TARP, the budget deficit of 2009 would not have tripled Bush's record deficit of 2008.
But TARP wasn't Obama's last addition to the 2009 deficit. There was also the UAW Bailout bill and the Pork Stimulus Bill, which put signs up everywhere to advertise it, and without which, unemployment would have been 8%, and there was the Cash for Clunkers program, which fueled the Japanese Car Factories. While the "cash for clunkers" program pumped up sales of Japanese cars, it was the Tsunami which shut them down, and in turn pumped up US sales. The UAW bailout bill took the Big 3 from the owners, and sold Chrysler to the Italians and gave Government Motors to the Unions. Only Ford survived it, by not taking the money.
The Budgets of nearly every department of government saw double or triple digit percentage increases. The two parts that did not see increases: the Department of Defense and the Department of Veterans' Affairs.
The Trillion Dollar Deficits didn't get there on increases to the DoD Budget, but rather despite cuts to it, while increasing nearly every other budget, including that of the Department of Treasury and the IRS to the tune of 300%. The Fox history of debt increases attributes the debt of 2009 to Bush, but it should be on Obama's record.
In less than 3 years, even by Fox standards, Obama has requested and gotten increases in the debt equal to 16 years of both Clinton and Bush Jr., greater than all debt accumulated in the first 213 years of our Nation, including the Civil War, two World Wars, the Korean War, the Viet Nam War, two wars with Britain, one with Spain, and the War with Mexico, plus lesser wars in Latin America, the Caribbean, twice against Islamists and one against Pirates, as well as the Cold War against the expansion of the Soviet Empire. Obama has increased the Debt in 3 years, by 50% of what it was when he was elected.
Opposition parties in control of various parts of government do one of two things: they buy off the other party by supporting spending on the opposition's pet projects, as we seem to see today, or they compromise on cuts to their own pet projects as we see in the Gingrich-Clinton era. In both the Bush Jr.-Reid era and the Obama-Reid-Boehner era, we're seeing spending rise to get the spending the other wants, but the Trillion Dollar Deficits didn't get here, until we had a party in absolute power under Obama-Reid-Pelosi, and they quickly tripled the record deficit of the year before.
Calling his political appointee the "Defense Department," Obama sent Secretary of Defense Gates and his replacement Secretary of Defense Panetta out to support cuts in Defense, and increases in the cost of treatment of Combat Injuries to Veterans:
The "transparency cuts:" http://waronterrornews.typepad.com/home/2009/04/appeasing-barney-frank.html
Then it was retention bonuses & recruiters: http://waronterrornews.typepad.com/home/2009/05/recruiting-cuts-reasonable.html
http://waronterrornews.typepad.com/home/2010/05/gates-calls-for-significant-cuts-in-defense-overhead.html
As he was leaving Admiral Mullen gave President Obama his endorsement to slash the Military: http://waronterrornews.typepad.com/home/2011/09/adm-mullen-endorses-cuts-in-dod-veteran-benefits.html
http://waronterrornews.typepad.com/home/2010/08/sec-gates-announces-efficiencies-initiatives-.html
The $100 Billion Cut: http://waronterrornews.typepad.com/home/2011/01/gateswhite-house-target-marines-for-wartime-spending-cuts.html
The $78 Billion Cut was supposed to be to the bare bone, beyond which even Obama knew we couldn't cut more: http://waronterrornews.typepad.com/home/2011/01/secdef-gates-calls-for-cuts-in-dod-budget-armymarine-personnel.html
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