10/18/2011 GOP Debate - Defense Budget Spending Cuts

AUDIENCE QUESTION: "Currently, there’s a deficit reduction measure to cut defense spending by $500 billion. Would you support such a reduction in defense spending? And if elected president, how will you provide a strong national defense?" CNN's Anderson Cooper directs the question as follows: "Congresswoman Bachmann, should defense be cut?"

Congresswoman Bachmann responds saying: "Well, $500 billion is the amount that the questioner had mentioned. And don’t forget, this was an historic week when it came to American foreign policy. We saw potentially an international assassination attempt from Iran on American soil. That says something about Iran, that they disrespect the United States so much, that they would attempt some sort of heinous act like that. Then, we saw the president of the United States engage American troops in a fourth conflict in a foreign land. This is historic. 

Then, on Sunday, we heard the reports that now that — in Iraq, the 5,000 troops that were going to be left there won’t even be granted immunity by Iraq. This is how disrespected the United States is in the world today, and it’s because of President Obama’s failed policies. He’s taken his eyes off the number one issue in the world. That’s an Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon. That makes all of us in much danger.  And the president of Iran is a genocidal maniac. We need to stand up against Iran. And as president of the United States, I will. We will be respected again in the world.

Cooper interrupts Bachmann stating: "The question though was about budget cuts. And is everything on the table in terms of cutting the budget?" Bachmann says "Absolutely everything," and Cooper attempts to make sure he is clear on her position by asking her again: "So defense spending would be on the table, should be?"

Again, Bachmann says "Defense spending is on the table, but again, Anderson, now with the president, he put us in Libya. He is now putting us in Africa. We already were stretched too thin, and he put our Special Operations Forces in Africa." Bachmann does, however, say they are "on the table, but we cannot cut it by $500 billion. We can’t do that to tour brave men and women who are on the ground fighting for us."

Gingrich responds to the question saying "I mean, if you want to understand how totally broken Washington is, look at this entire model of the super committee, which has now got a magic number to achieve. And if it doesn’t achieve the magic number, then we’ll all have to shoot ourselves in the head so that when they come back with a really dumb idea to merely cut off our right leg, we’ll all be grateful that they’re only semi-stupid instead of being totally stupid. Now, the idea that you have a bunch of historically illiterate politicians who have no sophistication about national security trying to make a numerical decision about the size of the defense budget tells you everything you need to know about the bankruptcy of the current elite in this country in both parties. The fact is, we ought to first figure out what threaten us, we ought to figure out what strategies will respond to that. We should figure out what structures we need for those strategies. We should then cost them.

I helped found the Military Reform Caucus. I’m a hawk, but I’m a cheap hawk. But the fact is, to say I’m going to put the security of the United States up against some arbitrary budget number is suicidally stupid."

Cooper says "Congressman Paul, you just proposed eliminating the Departments of Commerce, Education, Energy, Interior, Housing and Urban Development. You say it will save a trillion dollars in one year. You’re proposing a 15 percent cut to the Defense Department. Can you guarantee national security will not be hurt by that?"

Paul quickly states: "I think it would be enhanced. I don’t want to cut any defense. And you have to get it straight. There’s a lot of money spent in the military budget that doesn’t do any good for our defense.

How does it help us to keep troops in Korea all these years? We’re broke. We have to borrow this money.

Why are we in Japan? Why do we subsidize Germany, and they subsidize their socialized system over there? Because we pay for it. We’re broke. 

And this whole thing that this can’t be on the table, I’ll tell you what, this debt bubble is the thing you better really worry about, because it’s imploding on us right now. It’s worldwide. We are no more removed from this than the man on the moon. It’s going to get much worse. And to cut military spending is a wise thing to do. We would be safer if we weren’t in so many places. 

We have an empire. We can’t afford it. The empires always bring great nations down. We spread ourselves too thinly around the world. This is what’s happened throughout history, and we’re doing it to ourselves. The most recent empire to fail was an empire that went into, of all places, Afghanistan. They went broke. So where are we? In Afghanistan. I say it’s time to come home."

(Read Santorum first - this is Paul's response) Well, I think we’re on economic suicide if we’re not even willing to look at some of these overseas expenditures, 150 bases — 900 bases, 150 different countries. We have enough weapons to blow up the world about 20-25 times. We have more weapons than all the other countries put together essentially. And we want to spend more and more, and you can’t cut a penny? I mean, this is why we’re at an impasse. I want to hear somebody up here willing to cut something. Something real. This budget is in bad shape and the financial calamity is going to be much worse than anybody ever invading this country. Which country — are they going to invade this country? They can’t even shoot a missile at us.

He jumps into the conversation saying "To address Congressman Paul’s answer and the other answer on military spending, I would absolutely not cut one penny out of military spending. The first order of the federal government, the only thing the federal government can do that no other level of government can do is protect us. It is the first duty of the president of the United States is to protect us. And we should have the resources — we should have all the resources in place to make sure that we can defend our borders, that we can make sure that when we engage in foreign countries, we do so to succeed.That has been the problem in this administration. We’ve had political objectives instead of objectives for success. And that’s why we haven’t succeeded. 

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