“…provide for the common Defence and general Welfare…”

The language of Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution is very clear:

“The Congress shall have Power to lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States;…

To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;

To provide and maintain a Navy;…

To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;…

…and to exercise like Authority over all Places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be, for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards, and other needful Buildings;”

A thorough reading of all the other duties and responsibilities of the Congress listed in Article I, Section 8 reveals no language remotely resembling “expensive Defence, bankrupting Defence, or provide only common Defence and nothing else.”

There is a meme in the Democratic community that describes our situation in Washington as well as our situation in our own state capitol.  It may have a few variations but simply stated in terms of budget and spending we don’t have a revenue problem, we have a priorities problem!

This bar graph of 2015 discretionary spending illustrates the point beautifully:

Before we go any further allow me to say I do not see myself as being in any way anti-military.  I dreamed of serving in the U.S. Navy from the time I was in junior high school and in fact enlisted in that esteemed service branch at age 18, served for four years, remained enlisted reserve until I completed my college education and received a direct commission in the U.S. Navy Nurse Corps.  Yes, I was a career sailor and retired out of the Naval Reserve at the rank of lieutenant commander twenty-two years to the day I woke up in boot camp.  Toward the end of that career, during the downsizing of the Navy in the mid and late 1990s, I vividly recall a Navy wide focus on fraud, waste and abuse.  There were 1-800 hotlines in every work center for reporting fraud and waste, daily reminders in the command Plan of the Day, and many exhortations to “waste not, want not.”  I will vouch that every effort was made during those years to get the biggest possible bang out of my department’s budget dollar.  Seeing what was done at the command and work center level to contain costs made me occasionally wonder then what was being done at the policy making level to do the same.

Since my retirement from the Naval Reserve in 2000 the United States has been involved in two open ended overseas military adventures costing in the trillions of dollars with the result of each being dubious in terms of making the USA any safer either at home or abroad.  Both of these adventures were in response to an attack on our nation with all its sophisticated weapon systems, nuclear arsenal and the highest monetary expenditure in the World for defense by a group of 20-odd motivated and determined assholes who hijacked four civilian airliners armed with nothing but box cutters!

Not only do I expect my nation’s military to be the best trained and best armed in the World, I expect it to be the most cost efficient.  Expending exorbitant amounts of money on big ticket items such at the F-35 fighter plane that are billions over budget and years past any reasonable delivery deadline do not make the nation safer, are a drain on tax dollars best used elsewhere, and give the appearance we are preparing for the next conflict by arming for the last one.  Just like it was every service member’s job to get the biggest possible bang out of our budget dollar, it is the Congress’ job to get the same out of the taxpayer’s dollar.  This is something on which a growing segment of the American public is demanding accountability and justly so.  The United States currently spends more on defense than the next eight nations combined:

The question is do we really need spend at insane levels to be safe?  Most would agree we could put some of the money thrown into the black hole of DoD to better use.  Taking care of the veterans who bore the burden of battle would be a good place to start.