Salon: Obama’s not-so “dangerous” Pentagon cuts

Saturday, Jan 7, 2012 2:00 PM UTC

Republicans pounced on Obama's proposed military cuts as endangering America, but, historically, the plan is modest

By Justin Elliott

In a presentation at the Pentagon Thursday, President Obama announced the results of a “comprehensive defense review” and some hints about how a proposed $487 billion in cuts over the next decade might be made.

Republicans quickly blasted Obama’s initiative as “dangerous,” with columnist Charles Krauthammer calling the plan “a road map to American decline.”

But are the proposed cuts really all that drastic? For an answer to that question and an explanation of how cuts might — or might not — ultimately be made, I spoke to Bill Hartung, director of the Arms and Security Project at the Center for International Policy.

Can you give the quick broad overview of what Obama actually announced yesterday in terms of the size of the military and its budget?

Going back to when Bob Gates was still secretary of defense, they started out talking about cuts of less than $100 billion over five years. At the meeting this week they talked about $487 billion over 10 years. But that’s against what the Pentagon would like to spend, not against what they’re spending now; and they had quite ambitious plans for increases. As President Obama pointed out, this new plan would basically slow the rate of increase. Given that we’re at the highest spending level since World War II, there shouldn’t be as much of an uproar as there has been in Congress. I think a lot of it is just turf wars protecting bureaucracies and contracts.

Read the entire piece at Salon.com

TPM: Romney’s Claim To Be A Job Creator Hits The Skids

TPM: Here’s What Romney’s Unreleased Tax Returns Almost Certainly Hide

Brian Beutler January 5, 2012, 5:32 AM

Mitt Romney still says he’s unlikely to publicly release his tax information, even if he clinches the Republican presidential nomination, and Democrats have a pretty good idea why.

Romney is a privileged poster child for the “Buffett Rule” — President Obama’s principle that the tax code should make it impossible for a person of great wealth to pay a lower share of their income in taxes as than ordinary people. The DNC knows it, policy wonks know it, Romney certainly knows it. But the reasons why are technical and illustrate just how different Romney is from the vast majority of Americans who will cast votes for him — in either the GOP primary or the general election.

One tax expert told TPM of “fairly sophisticated tax strategies” that would be “not available to ordinary tax payers.” A technique that puts you in a position that’s “like having an unlimited 401k account” sounds very attractive. But maybe not if you’re running for office, for Pete’s sake.

When Romney jokes that he’s been unemployed for years, he’s obscuring the fact that he’s still collecting millions of dollars of investment income, which is taxed at a much lower rate than it would be if he, like most taxpayers, took home a regular paycheck. He’s also obscuring the fact a great deal of that same income is only vaguely connected to his own underlying investments, and yet benefits from a key loophole in the tax code that allows him and other wealthy finance veterans to more than halve their effective tax rate.

Read the entire article at TPM.com

Joan Walsh: Rick Santorum, working class hero or free market fanatic?

Wednesday, Jan 4, 2012 1:25 PM UTC

The former Pennsylvania senator makes Romney look like the plutocrat he is, but he has no solutions for the economy
By Joan Walsh

For a modestly attended small-state caucus that ended with three candidates within four percent of one another, Iowa clarified a great deal about the GOP presidential campaign. Mitt Romney didn’t entirely shame himself; the man who once pondered skipping Iowa because of its conservative Christian caucus base wound up effectively tied for first place, ahead by eight votes when all the caucus reports were in. Most important, there’s already an official anti-Romney candidate, and it’s Rick Santorum. Two weeks ago, nobody saw that coming. He and Romney are going to fight a faux-battle over the role of class and the sputtering American economy that will ultimately offer no solutions for struggling Americans. But it might highlight issues that ought to matter in November.

Just as Ron Paul, who finished a slightly disappointing third, brings a welcome focus on the excesses of the American national security state, Santorum shows a concern for the casualties of the American economy that is rare for a Republican. It’s not that Santorum has answers, but it’s a little bit bracing even to hear the questions, in a race that has been mainly about destroying Iran and the evil socialism of Barack Obama. Don’t get me wrong: Santorum wants to destroy Iran, and Obama, and he has no solutions to the problems of income inequality and stalled economic mobility he professes to care about. But his election night speech established a huge empathy gulf between him and Romney that ought to rattle Romney in the weeks to come.

I found myself moved when Santorum talked about his Italian immigrant grandfather, a coal miner, who “worked in a mine in a company town, he lived in a shack.” Santorum described staring at his grandfather’s big, rough, workingman’s hands after he died, and realizing “those hands dug freedom for me.” I thought of that great Bill Withers song, “Grandma’s hands.” Mitt Romney will never make you think of Bill Withers.

And yet Santorum has nothing to offer the struggling, left-behind American worker. He gathered himself up to denounce his party for only talking about cutting taxes and regulations when people are hurting – and then he mainly talked about cutting taxes and regulations. Santorum’s answer to American economic insecurity is strengthening the American family. He offered the touching bromide, “When the family breaks down, the economy breaks down.” In fact, the reverse may be true.

Read the whole article at Salon.com