Question: What is Dean's position on the size of the Defense Budget ??

[welshTerrier2]

if possible, can you provide quotes or links that explain his position?

Thanks ...

[Hawkeye-X]

1. Dean's position

http://www.deanforamerica.com/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=8856

http://www.deanforamerica.com/site/PageServer?pagename=policy_policy_homelandsecurity

That should help you get a pretty good idea.

Hawkeye-X

[ShimokitaJer]

2. Dean really takes the "Defense" in DOD seriously, doesn't he

With Bush in charge, it seems like we've returned to the "Department of War" days, when the only acceptable way to spend money on defense is by building up the military. We can't prevent attacks; we can only hit back. In the meantime, he was cutting funding for first-responders, alienating US allies, and reducing cooperation between and oversight of security organizations.

I love the way Dean redefines spending for "defense" as just that: "the ability to defend the US from attack."

[welshTerrier2]

6. But the Question Was

i appreciate your point that Dean's vision for the military would differ greatly from bush's strategy of perpetual war ...

but with all due respect, the question i'm trying to get answered is one of budgetary priorities ...

does Dean support cutting the defense budget, retaining the current spending levels or increasing the budget ?

[ShimokitaJer]

8. It's my understanding...

that he intends to retain the current budget, but redirect a portion of the funds toward prevention and first response. I'm no Dean expert, and I admit that much of the information regarding his not cutting the defense budget comes from Dean's attackers, so I can't confirm its accuracty.

I think it would be extremely difficult for any Democrat to come in and cut the defense budget and still resist the Republican characterization of Democrats as weak on defense. My attempted point is that I think Dean is getting around that perception by redefining what a defense budget is. As far as I know, he isn't cutting the budget, but he is using it for a wider range of activities.

[DoveTurnedHawk]

10. Clark Could Do It

I think it would be extremely difficult for any Democrat to come in and cut the defense budget and still resist the Republican characterization of Democrats as weak on defense.

He and Kerry are the only ones with a prayer of doing this, and of the two of them, only Clark has actually raised the issue.

DTH

[welshTerrier2]

4. Not Enough Info

thanks for the websites, Hawkeye ...

i read the articles but still couldn't find anything definitive on Dean's position on the current defense budget ...

i think he has refused to support cuts in the overall defense budget but i can't find anything specific ...

[blm]

3. ask his advisor, Toby Moffett - war profiteer.

Former Monsanto VP now working for Bob Livingston (R-pervert)

This has EVERYTHING to do with how Dean sees the Defense budget, since he has no real life experience to bring to defense matters and will rely on his advisors more than lawmakers experienced in that issue.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A30907-2003Oct1?language=printer

Lobbyists Set Sights On Money-Making Opportunities in Iraq
By Thomas B. Edsall and Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, October 2, 2003; Page A21

Some of Washington's top Republican lobbyists are counting on ties to the Bush administration, the congressional leadership and the Iraqi provisional government to turn the embattled country into a major new profit center.
"It's like a huge pot of honey that's attracting a lot of flies," said Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.).

The opportunities -- and risks -- of doing business in Iraq are far more varied than in traditional Washington lobbying. One alliance of Republican lobbyists, New Bridge Strategies, whose interest in Iraq has earned considerable attention because of its close ties to the Bush administration, is gearing up to seek distribution rights for major U.S. companies producing everything from grain to auto parts to shampoo.

"Getting the rights to distribute Procter & Gamble products would be a gold mine," said one of the partners at New Bridge who did not want to be named. "One well-stocked 7-Eleven could knock out 30 Iraqi stores; a Wal-Mart could take over the country," he said.

This same group, which includes Joe M. Allbaugh, President Bush's 2000 campaign manager, and Ed Rogers and Lanny Griffith, two top political aides to Bush's father, have also set up a security company, Diligence-Iraq, which has hired former members of the U.S. Special Forces, New Zealand's equivalent of the Green Berets and the Iraqi military to provide protection for companies and for corporate leaders visiting the country. In a matter of months, Diligence-Iraq has begun to turn a profit, said chief executive Michael Miller, who for 14 years was a "covert field operations officer for the CIA, specializing in counterterrorism, counternarcotics and counterinsurgency operations," according to the company.

>>>>>>
Another lobbying firm run by former House Appropriations Committee chairman Bob Livingston (R-La.) is representing well-placed Iraqi families seeking to form business alliances with U.S. and foreign companies interested in setting up operations in the country, and the firm is exploring working with a Jordanian pharmaceutical firm and an Iraqi business family to produce antibiotics for Iraq.

The Livingston Group is also working on behalf of De La Rue, a British printing and paper company that has won a contract to print some of Iraq's currency, and is now seeking to produce secure travel documents for the fledgling government. Anthony J. "Toby" Moffett Jr., a former Democratic representative from Connecticut who works with Livingston, said his firm's first task was to "make sure the people in decision-making positions knew the severity of the problem as regards to security documentation. We had to try to convince the U.S. government they need to fix this issue sooner rather than later."

The Coalition Provisional Authority initially approached De La Rue about submitting a proposal for half a million secure interim travel documents, but then informed Moffett and others that the U.S. Government Printing Office would print 10,000 documents. Moffett said the Livingston Group is "making the case on the Hill and elsewhere about moving more rapidly toward a private contractor that really knows what it's doing," appealing to Rep. Frank R. Wolf (R-Va.), chairman of the Appropriations subcommittee on the Commerce, Justice and State departments, and to members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. "We're trying to get the right people to ask the right questions of the right people."
>>>>>>>> 
 

[Padraig18]

5. I think this is a record

An utterly gratuitous and baseless slander/flame on only the third post, and non-responsive to the poster's question, at that! Bravo, sir! *applause* :P

[blm]

20. try again...

the message posted before I finished adding the article linked.

[dsc]

23. I read the text you provided four times

I admit to being somewhat tired now so maybe I missed it but I see not one word linking this man to Dean. Do you have any proof of that at all?

[gully]

24. Same question here...

didn't see ANYTHING related to Dean at all???

[blm]

25. Thought you had seen it earlier....here ya go.

Roll Call 's Chris Cillizza reports that despite bashing his opponents as "Washington insiders," Howard Dean is "relying on a group of seasoned lobbyists and other Washington political operatives to help guide his own inside-the-Beltway efforts."

Roll Call 's Chris Cillizza reports that despite bashing his opponents as "Washington insiders," Howard Dean is "relying on a group of seasoned lobbyists and other Washington political operatives to help guide his own inside-the-Beltway efforts."

"The group, which meets every two to three weeks, was organized by former Clinton administration official Maria Echaveste and Nikki Heidepriem, a former staffer to Senator Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.). It includes roughly 25 people who assemble in an informal gathering of Capitol Hill staffers, lobbyists, lawyers, and employees of nonprofit and advocacy organizations."
"Among those who regularly attend the meetings are former Rep. Toby Moffett (D-Conn.), now a lobbyist affiliated with the Livingston Group; former" DNC vice chair "Lynn Cutler of Holland & Knight; and Christine Varney, a Hogan & Hartsen attorney who served as the general counsel on the first Clinton presidential bid and as a Federal Trade Commissioner from 1995 to 1997."
"Terry Lierman, a former Hill staffer, lobbyist and House candidate who now serves as Dean's national finance co-chair, is also a regular participant."

http://abcnews.go.com/sections/politics/TheNote/TheNote.html

[gully]

27. Are you talking about THIS Toby Moffett?

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines/090300-04.htm

http://www.commondreams.org/news2000/1101-09.htm

"Moffett, 56, has been in the political arena since 1969, when he was an aide to then-Senator Walter F. Mondale, a Minnesota Democrat. He served four terms in the House, where he became an environmental and consumer rights advocate, before an unsuccessful bid for the US Senate in 1982."

[DoveTurnedHawk]

7. In Terms of Amount, Dean Supports the Status Quo

Although he would shift the priorities and expenditures of the military budget.

Of all of our candidates, only Kucinich (up to 15%) and Clark (up to 25%) have proposed actually cutting the military budget, in addition to shifting priorities and expenditures (less on weapons, more on homeland security and personnel).

Only Clark has spoken of the military as a "want machine" and indicated that you need to stop feeding it.

Finally, IMO, only Clark has the creds necessary to actually push this agenda through a Republican-controlled Congress.

DTH

[welshTerrier2]

9. thanks, DTH

the facts you provided matched my recollection of Dean's position ...

[DoveTurnedHawk]

11. Any Time

Always happy to help out. :-)

DTH

[blm]

12. Kerry wants star wars and mini-nukes cut out completely.

He has voted for cutting unnecessary programs many times as Senator. In fact, the GOP was going to use these votes to say he's soft on defense.

Posted at P&C:

http://www.gop.com/newsroom/rncresearch/research071803.htm
http://www.gop.com/newsroom/rncresearch/research071603.htm

Kerry believes in funding programs that work, but he is a strong believer in eliminating redundacy, useless pork giveaways, and stuff that just plain doesn't work. He's also a big proponent of reducing, not increasing the nuclear weapons in the world - starting with the US.

Kerry is strong on Defense, but his priorities are fully backing (and paying) military personnel and giving veterans their rightful due, not bending over for the Military-Industrial Complex.
---
"We must also take a hard look at federal spending. We simply can’t afford to keep wasting money on the wrong things.

It won’t be easy. The special interests will stop at nothing to keep their special deals. That’s why I’ve joined John McCain in calling for a “Corporate Subsidy Reform Commission” modeled after the military base-closing commission. A bipartisan group would recommend corporate subsidies to be eliminated and Congress would have to vote up or down on the entire package.

It’s the only way to stop the games that go on in Washington. When I first came to the Senate, each year millions upon millions of dollars were lavished on a wool and mohair subsidy cooked up during WWI to make sure we’d have plenty of wool and mohair for our soldiers’ uniforms.

But even after we stopped making our uniforms out of wool and mohair, the subsidy continued. I came to the Senate floor again and again - finally we killed it. Or we thought we did. Last year it came back. This kind of wasteful, no-growth, special interest giveaway is alive and well -- again. But it’s just the tip of the iceberg.

We were presented a defense bill that gave away $250,000 to an Illinois firm to research caffeinated chewing gum; $750,000 for grasshopper research in Alaska; $250,000 for a lettuce geneticist in Salinas, California and $64,000 for urban pest research in Georgia. This is our defense budget?"

http://www.johnkerry.com/news/speeches/spc_2002_1203.html

[DoveTurnedHawk]

13. Kerry, Like Dean, Supports Shifts in Priorities

But not a cut of the overall budget.

DTH

[blm]

15. Fully funding and increasing veteran's benefits

especially their healthcare benefits. Increasing the healthcare and benefits for those who are serving and their families.

[DoveTurnedHawk]

17. I Think Every Democratic Candidate Has Endorsed That or Something Similar

It's something that needs to be done.

DTH

[welshTerrier2]

14. Dean Supports

retaining many components of the missile defense system ... he opposes only the "interceptor" missiles ...

fwiw, i oppose all components of the missile defense system ...

[JohnKleeb]

19. This is a good thing on Kerry

Still Kucinich all the way but this is a good thing about Kerry.

[ozone_man]

22. "more on homeland security"

is good business for Acxiom, a Clark enterprise.;-)

[revcarol]

16. On Russert: Dean: We can't cut the defense budget in this time of terror."

I was totally shocked. Also for weaponization of outer space in principle.

[DoveTurnedHawk]

18. I Hadn't Heard That!

I knew he was for the status quo, but I hadn't heard his rationale before.

Wow. I'm surprised too.

DTH

[Julien Sorel]

26. The entire interview is most interesting, and it was after

reading it that I first really turned against Dean. His subsequent penchant for lying, and the endless torrent of empty rhetoric made me actively dislike the guy, but this interview told me Dean and I did not see eye-to-eye. Key excerpt:

Russert: ...calling for that, and this is what Howard Dean said. “The way to balance the budget, Dean said, is for Congress to cut Social Security, move the retirement age to 70, cut defense, Medicare and veterans pensions, while the states cut almost everything else. ‘It would be tough but we could do it,’ he said.”
Dean: Well, we fortunately don’t have to do that now.
Russert: We have a $500 billion deficit.
Dean: But you don’t have to cut Social Security to do that.
Russert: But why did you have to do it back then?
Dean: Well, because that was the middle of—I mean, I don’t recall saying that, but I’m sure I did, if you have it on your show, because I know your researchers are very good.
Russert: Well, Miles Benson is a very good reporter for the Newhouse News.
Dean: Yes, he is. No, no, no. I’m sure I did. I’m not denying I said that. I have...
Russert: But you would no longer cut Social Security?
Dean: But you don’t—no. I’m not ever going to cut Social Security benefits.
Russert: Would you raise retirement age to 70?
Dean: No. No.
Russert: Would you cut defense?
Dean: You don’t have to do that either. Here’s what you have to do. You got to get rid of the tax cuts, all of them, and then you have got to restrict spending. You’ve got to control—well, here’s what we did in Vermont. We had some mild tax cuts in the ’90s, not the huge ones that most other states did. Secondly, we put a lot of money into a rainy day fund, and I never let the Legislature spend more than the rate of growth of the economy, so the biggest increase I think we had in the almost 12 years I was governor was I think 5.2 percent or something like that. And then we paid off a quarter of our debt, which is what Bill Clinton did when he was president. Now, we’re not cutting higher education, we’re not cutting K through 12, we’re not cutting Medicaid for kids, and we have a balanced budget. So if you restrain spending, which is long-term spending, that’s the key to balancing the budget. But you’ve got to get rid of the tax cuts because the hole is so very, very deep. And Social Security, I—the best way to balance Social Security budget right now, other than stop taking the money out for the tax cuts, is to expand the amount of money that Social Security payroll taxes apply to. It’s limited now to something like $80,000. You let that rise. I also would entertain taking the retirement age to 68. It’s at 67 now. I would entertain that.
Russert: But the deficit’s $500 billion. Half the budget goes to Social Security, Medicare and Defense. They asked Willie Sutton why he robbed banks? He said, “That’s where the money is.” You could close down the entire United States government, other than Social Security, Medicare and Defense and interest on the public debt, and you still wouldn’t balance the budget.

http://stacks.msnbc.com/news/912159.asp


This is essentially watered-down libertarianism; since, Dean has placed the military budget and Social Security off-limits, making it resemble reduced-government conservatism -- ie, 'uncompassionate conservatism.' Notice the recommendation that states reduce their outlays as well as the federal government doing so, which would really put the kibosh on social spending. It has nothing to do with 'liberal' philosophy -- in fact it's Republicanism -- but no one really calls him on it. If we on the left don't challenge it, it won't get challenged.

[gully]

28. "watered-down libertarianism"

:eyes:

Didn't take the 'sheep' long to bite on the Libertarian BS did it?

"Russert: Would you cut defense?
Dean: You don’t have to do that either." *gasp*
ALL THE HUMANITIES! :scared:

[Julien Sorel]

31. Sorry, calling someone 'sheep' is not an argument.

I'd love to see one out of you though. It's 'libertarianism' with a small L, by the way.

[Le Taz Hot]

21. Gosh, it's been a couple of months since I've

seen this "talking point." Let's see, I believe it came from the Kucinich campaign last time. Perhaps, with new polls showing Dean increasing his lead we'll be seeing LOTS more "questions" about Dean. 'Scuze me while I yawn.

[gully]

29. ;) *YAWN* is right...

:boring:

[welshTerrier2]

30. Pathetic, Just Pathetic

you can't even let an honest question go by without ascribing motive to it ...

i am not a Kucinich supporter ... i did not ask my question because there are "new polls showing Dean increasing his lead" ... if it puts your paranoia at ease, perhaps you'll be glad to hear that i have not endorsed any candidate ...

i did take note, mr. biased Dean supporter, that i asked what i considered to be an important question, and in spite of the fact that threads that are either for or against Dean often get 100's of responses, it seemed like almost no one on DU could explain Dean's position on this issue ...

so, if you don't like people asking questions about your candidate and see these questions as attacks, that's just too bad ... get used to it ... it doesn't seem like you have much confidence in Dean's position on this issue if you see an unbiased question about it as an attack ...

[retyred]

32. Boy

I guess it's hard not to stutter and stammer when your spinning so fast.



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