There was a time I would have believed this even BEFORE my time as a soldier. I highly doubt it anymore.
In the 1976 election, Jimmy Carter went into Florida to try and end George Wallace's candidacy but got popped by Senator Henry Jackson for Carter's proposal for defense spending cuts. Carter, in his typical fashion, said Jackson was lying without actually saying he was lying (he also suggested he lost the Mass primary to Jackson because of racist reasons). Carter, in 1975, proposed a 5-7 percent Defense spending cut but was then informed by Paul Nitze (LBJ) that the defense budget would probably have to go up by 20-30 million bucks.
In the second debate of the 1976 election,
Jimmy Carter said the following:
Well I think this Republican administration has been almost all style, and spectacular, and not substance. We've uh - got a chance tonight to talk about, first of all, leadership, the character of our country, and a vision of the future. In every one of these instances, the Ford administration has failed, and I hope tonight that I and Mr. Ford will have a chance to discuss the reasons for those failures.
Our country is not strong anymore; we're not respected anymore. We can only be strong overseas if we're strong at home; and when I became president we'll not only be strong in those areas but also in defense - a defense capability second to none. We've lost in our foreign policy, the character of the American people. We've uh - ignored or excluded the American people and the Congress from participation in the shaping of our foreign policy. It's been one of secrecy and exclusion. In addition to that we've had a chance to became now, contrary to our long-standing beliefs and principles, the arms merchant of the whole world. We've tried to buy success from our enemies, and at the same time we've excluded from the process the normal friendship of our allies.
In addition to that we've become fearful to compete with the Soviet Union on an equal basis. We talk about detente. The Soviet Union knows what they want in detente, and they've been getting it. We have not known what we've wanted and we've been out-traded in almost every instance. The other point I wanna make is about our defense. We've got to be a nation blessed with a defense capability that's efficient, tough, capable, well organized, narrowly focused - fighting capability. The ability to fight, if necessary, is the best way to avoid the chance for, or the requirement to fight. And the last point I wanna make is this: Mr. Ford, Mr. Kissinger have uh - continued on with the policies and failures of Richard Nixon. Even the Republican platform has criticized the lack of leadership in Mr. Ford and they've criticized the foreign policy of this administration. This is one instance where I agree with - with the Republican platform.
I might say this in closing, and that is that as far as foreign policy goes, Mr. Kissinger has been the president of this country. Mr. Ford has shown an absence of leadership, and an absence of a grasp of what this country is and what it ought to be. That's got to be changed. And that's one of the major issues in this uh - campaign of 1976.
He got zinged by Democrats
as early as 1977 because he wouldn't cut defense spending and then in the 1980 debate he tried this:
CARTER
The fact is that this nation, in the eight years before I became President, had its own military strength decreased. Seven out of eight years, the budget commitments for defense went down, 37% in all. Since I've been in office, we've had a steady, carefully planned, methodical but, very effective increase in our commitment for defense. But what we've done is use that enormous power and prestige and military strength of the United States to preserve the peace.
But Reagan knew the facts behind the facts better than a lot of folks wish to admit:
Well yes, I question the figure about the decline in defense spending under the two previous Administrations in the preceding eight years to this Administration. I would call to your attention that we were in a war that wound down during those eight years, which of course made a change in military spending because of turning from war to peace. I also would like to point out that Republican presidents in those years, faced with a Democratic majority in both houses of the Congress, found that their requests for defense budgets were very often cut.
(Roughly translated, Reagan is saying, "Well duh, LBJ pumped a bunch of money into Vietnam and Nixon and Ford reduced it, so you hardly get credit for this.")
But then Reagan himself - it's never been certain why - spent the campaign talking about an alleged "window of vulnerability" in the so-called "missile gap" with the Soviets, blamed Carter for it...and then wound up as President spending more money for fewer missiles solely because he didn't want to approve a system that had been first approved by Carter (speaking of petty). It was then left to Bush to basically go along with a ten-year old bad idea because he was stuck with it due to prior stupid decisions.
This is just an example and this goes on and on. I liken a lot of this to whole "that college football team cheats" narrative. It's rhetoric, no evidence necessary. The Defense Department will ALWAYS say we're vulnerable because if they don't then the funding gets cut....of course, everyone does this but not everyone has the responsibility to shield us from a mushroom cloud, either.
In 2000,
Governor Bush proposed a defense spending increase of $256 billion over ten years...which would have been a bargain for what he wound up spending just in Iraq.
Not to be mean but.....do we REALLY need Navy pilots AND ** pilots (for example)? It wasn't covered (Conway told me) but the service branches all got into it with one another over who was doing what in Desert Storm. There's a lot of replication of tasks.
Besides - how many more ground wars do you really think we're going to do?
I've seen this whole fear tactic before - everyone uses it. If there's ANY restriction of ANY kind on abortion then the cry is they'll overturn Roe v Wade. If there's ANY handgun restriction, same thing. Same thing here.