LETTER: So much for spending cuts

To the Telegram:

Remember the big budget crisis last year, which ended with legislation that would force spending cuts?

Rep. Sean Duffy, R-Weston, told constituents: “I’m going to support this piece of legislation … because it helps us get our fiscal house in order. It cuts spending by a larger amount than we raise the debt limit. It caps future spending to limit the growth of government, without any tax hikes that hurt our small businesses and manufacturers.”

July 2012 and the realities of budget problems and Pentagon spending now appears to be lost on Duffy who helped pass another massive military spending bill, approving another $606 billion in spending according to his press release.

Budget cuts are so 2011. Indeed, some weapons programs the Pentagon had hoped to get rid of were re-funded nevertheless by the bill, and cuts in direct war spending were replaced with a massive increase to a “contingency operations” budget, to be set aside for other wars President Obama might start between now and the end of fiscal year 2013.

Ultimately, the bill weighed in at several billion dollars more than the Pentagon had sought in the first place, and even more than that above the “spending cap,” they promised that they would adhere to.

In 1961, Republican President Eisenhower warned, “In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex.” Republicans, and Rep. Duffy, let their guard down.

Jim Maas,

Libertarian Party of Wisconsin

Tags: opinion, letters