it cuts both ways. republicans didnt mind out of control spending and expanding government when bush was president. but obama comes in and all of a sudden its an issue for them. democrats were critical of bush's wars, civil liberties violations and the police state, but when obama comes in they defend it. i will say this though - theres a few who will defend everything he does b/c he is 'their guy', but for the most part liberals are much more apt to not blindly follow their president. they dont march in lock-step like conservatives did w/ bush when he was president. and ive also noticed that the republicans do a much better job of not alienating their base. they know who puts them in office and they do an excellent job of playing to them. sure, they mocked the evangelicals and their gullibility in closed quarters, but you would have never had bush's press secretary publicly accusing them of being on drugs and needing psychological evaluation like that turd robert gibbs did to liberals who were critical of obama.
word jo Can you imagine Bush calling out his base as "sanctimonious" or "staking out unrealistic, purist positions"?
instead of starting a new thread, here's someone who gets it. Writing for money.cnn.com, a former asst. secretary of defense talks about how we can cut $1trillion in military spending and why it makes sense. Some choice bits: "Defense is the third largest area of the federal budget, consuming 23% of the total and 55% of the discretionary portion. The Bush administration added $1 trillion to the base budget it inherited and spent more than $1 trillion on the direct costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. And those direct costs don't take into account the additional trillions that are and will have to be spent providing medical care and benefits to disabled veterans and for replacing equipment. On top of all that, the Obama administration has increased the base budget. It projects spending $6.5 trillion between 2011 and 2020. So the deficit commission's proposed $1 trillion "cut" is actually a reduction in a big spending increase. Where to cut The question remains: Can the baseline budget be cut by $1 trillion without jeopardizing national security? Yes, it can. But it has to be done correctly. First, we need to analyze whether the current force we are funding actually supports the strategy. As Gates himself has noted, we will not again do regime change and nation building under fire, as we did in Iraq and Afghanistan. In dealing with al Qaeda, the new strategy will most likely be the one currently being used in Yemen and Pakistan. In those countries, we employ comparatively small numbers of Special Forces supplemented by strikes by unmanned aircraft or drones. Second, we need to ask why we still have 150,000 troops stationed in Europe and Asia, 65 years after the end of World War II, especially when our European allies are slashing their defense budgets to deal with their deficits. Returning the sizes of the Army and Marine Corps to their pre-Iraq invasion levels will allow us to cut about 100,000 people at a savings of at least $15 billion a year. And reducing troops in Europe and Asia by 50,000 will yield another $10 billion a year. Third, we can eliminate or scale back weapons that deal with threats that are from a bygone era, are way over budget or are just plain flawed. Included on this list would be the 573 Expeditionary Fighting Vehicles the Marines want to build at a cost of $15 billion when they have not conducted an amphibious landing under fire in over 60 years. Another example: The $13 billion the Navy wants to build a new aircraft carrier, when as Gates has said, we should reduce the number of carriers from 11 to 10."
