Issue Position: What Should Be Our Nation's Defense Spending Priorities?

Issue Position

Our nation's first defense spending priority is to protect ourselves from attack. We must ensure that we are safe at home. In doing this, however, we also must live up to our alliances with other countries and protect our troops. This means not committing our military to war without having just cause, and, if at all possible, strong allies. It means that pre-emptive strike should not be the basis of our foreign policy.

Our American soldiers in Iraq have performed up to our high expectations of them. We have put them in harm's way, and a top priority is to appropriately arm and protect our service men and women. We have not done this well in Iraq, and regardless of whether we should have gone to Iraq in the first place, our people are there. We must keep our promise to them and their families by providing appropriate protection - gear, armor, and moral support - as they do their duty.

As a government we have an obligation to protect our people and our communities. We should do so wisely. Right now, we spend more on the Pentagon than the rest of the world combined spends on defense (Business Leaders for Sensible Priorities). Despite this incredible level of spending, the Pentagon's bookkeeping is marginal at best. No one can link the Pentagon's financial inputs to its policy outputs; in other words, Congress and the public cannot know whether a line item is actually linked to a desired policy outcome. This must change. We expect public schools to be accountable for meeting their goals; it is time to hold the Pentagon to the same standards.

We need to eliminate spending on out-dated Cold War-era weapon systems. No private business would continue to produce obsolete products long after their time had past. Further, we must stop paying for untested weapons. This type of reckless spending must be curbed. We are spending too much and getting too little in return.

Finally, we need to work closely with our allies to more equally share the costs of maintaining a safer world. This is where Republican foreign policy has most disastrously failed the American people. Successful diplomacy means that we use military force when necessary, and entails bringing other countries on board. Failed diplomacy, as we have seen over the last six years, translates into less money for our public schools, for Social Security, for environmental protection, and most importantly, tragic loss of life.

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