Recently, the Pentagon said that our national debt, caused by out-of-control government spending, is currently the greatest threat facing the survival of the United States. That would make our own current government more dangerous to our country’s survival than Iran, the Taliban, al Qaida, China, Russia, Kim Kardashian, etc. (That’s not me saying that: That’s Admiral Mike Mullen!) And that’s serious! But what’s odd to me is this: Isn’t the Pentagon the recipient of an awful lot of that out-of-control spending that’s creating that dangerously large debt? But they don’t seem to ever want to have their budget cut to help defeat this, the greatest threat to our nation. I guess if you can’t bomb it or shoot it, it’s not worth defeating.
It seems like the Pentagon thinks that while all this runaway spending that’s creating so much mounting national debt is awful, they’re getting just the right amount of money for their budget. It’s just everyone else who’s abusing the system and demanding too much money. So whenever anyone proposes a cut in defense spending, they complain lots and lots, and they say we’ll be less safe, and we’ll probably be conquered or something, etc.; even though, since we spend like ten times more on our military than any other country on Earth, you’d think there would be a little bit of fat we could trim, but apparently not. But I have to wonder, do they ever think about doing more than just warning about external threats to argue against military budget cuts? Might they get a bit more, how shall we say, theatrical/creative in their reasoning?
Like, I wonder if they ever think about saying something like: “If you cut our defense budget, it’s possible that we’d run out of the necessary funds to prevent something bad from happening; like, for example, it’s possible that some weapon could get loose and target the capitol. It would be a shame if something bad happened to your city. And nobody wants that. But if you didn’t cut the defense budget, I think it’s safe to say that probably wouldn’t happen. But just to be on the safe side, maybe you ought to just double the budget. I mean, just to be sure nothing bad could happen. Because you never know what could happen…” And then they could run a protection racket to “protect” us from all of our own military’s weapons. I just wonder if they ever joke about doing something like that. (I’ll bet they do, when nobody’s listening.)
(This is just a joke! Please don't detain me indefinitely!)
Here’s that statement about the debt being our greatest threat (it’s in the first paragraph):
