Let’s get one thing good and glowing clear proper off the bat: What we have now seen within the first month of the second Trump administration borders on revolutionary.
It’s extraordinary. Unprecedented in trendy occasions.
There are not any bugaboos or sacred cows. In contrast to each President since Gerald Ford, our forty seventh Government appears to not solely actually perceive the rating and the present state of affairs, he’s fearlessly and aggressively taking motion. Not kicking the can down the street. Not blaming this or that circumstance exterior of his management.
Every little thing about what we’re seeing is up to now exterior the norm of current expertise that it actually couldn’t be known as “conservative” in any significant sense of the time period. No, to return to something even remotely resembling “America” requires much more than merely pumping the rusty drum brakes on the Pinto of our present dilapidated ship of State.
President Trump’s insistence that the Pentagon not be spared its justifiable share of the cuts we desperately want is a working example.
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Sure, The Pentagon Wants Drastic Cuts, Too
The Pentagon’s untouchable standing amongst Republicans and what passes for “the suitable” usually has held for generations. Owing to many years of Chilly Battle propaganda, (through which People had been preposterously led to consider that we needed to spend infinite cash on sufficient nuclear weapons to destroy the planet 100-times-over or that there was any even distant chance that America may cross an ocean and a continent to defeat the Soviet Union’s tank legions on the Steppe) many, if not most People view Pentagon spending as de facto good and vital, and whilst cash nicely spent.
That, in fact, is absurd on its face. The Pentagon is infamous for its damaged acquisition course of (shopping for delicate elements for our most superior stealth fighters from China? Verify.), for waste so unbelievable you may hardly consider your eyes ($37 for a single screw, $8,000 for a espresso maker, $1,300 for espresso cups, verify.), and for being completely incapable of passing an audit.
Or my private favourite style: Arming one Islamic terrorist group in an effort to struggle the CIA’s Islamic terrorist group.
A few of us keep in mind Donald Rumsfeld’s press convention of September 10, 2001, when he informed the assembled scribes that the five-sided constructing’s monetary system couldn’t monitor $2.3 trillion in transactions.
In 2023, we had been handled to the information that the Pentagon couldn’t account for 63% of almost $4 trillion in property.
Taking all that into consideration, if you happen to nonetheless consider that there’s not a penny in financial savings to be discovered within the struggle machine, I’ve bridges in Da Nang and workplace buildings in Fallujah to promote you.
All that brings us to Trump, who’s working up plans to chop Pentagon spending by 8% per yr for the subsequent 5 years.
Now, earlier than anybody will get their panties in a bunch, these cuts will exempt (allegedly) essential areas, like missile protection, border safety, buying new submarines, and so forth.
Pentagon Spending In Perspective
However wait! How are we going to cease Russia from driving their lots of tanks and armor throughout Germany and France, loading up onto boats, and finally debarking on the mouth of the Potomac?
Humorous you ask: Russia supposedly spent the whopping sum of $129 billion on their army in 2024 – whereas within the midst of what they view as existential struggle with their massive neighbor.
Which is to say, our legislators spent $721 billion extra than Russia did final yr, or 6.5 occasions extra. Put one other means, the $183 billion Uncle Sam could or could not have willy-nilly given to Ukraine and not using a second thought is greater than Russia’s complete protection funds.
It’s time to begin being life like. Historical past could rhyme in a Cockney rhyming slang sense, however it by no means repeats. Russia will not be the Soviet Union. The date will not be 1938, or 1944, or 1962, or 1991.
President Trump and First Buddy Elon Musk are on to one thing that nobody else appears to know, or be keen to do something about: This nation is correct on the verge of a debt-death-spiral.
In 2022, the curiosity cost on the nationwide debt was $476 billion – greater than half of our annual protection funds, and almost four-times Russia’s protection funds.
In 2024, the curiosity cost on the debt almost doubled – to $881 billion. 2025 projections come out to $952 billion.
Do you perceive now? If spending ranges stay the identical, in 10 years it’s going to value $1.8 trillion simply to pay the curiosity cost.
There’s a very severe enemy we have to fear about. And it’s not loopy Ivan. It’s not China, nevertheless badly our leaders need to as soon as once more plop American boys down into one other land struggle in Asia.
It’s not even exterior the gates. The enemy is contained in the gates. He’s been there for many years together with his grubby little fingers all around the controls, weakening and destroying what is meant to be essentially the most highly effective apex nation in world historical past.
He goes by many names: Historical past, Ideology, Myopia, Worldwide Utopianism, and so forth.
He’s at struggle with Actuality, who has fought and not using a champion till 2016, with a minor interruption thrown in.
There are two and solely two choices. Both we grow to be a severe, accountable folks and we select the place to chop, or we keep the course, and another person will resolve for us.
