home / subscribe / donate / books / t-shirts / search / links / feedback / events / faq
The Best Tea Partier
Corporate Money Could BuyPam Martens on the rise of the Tea Party’s Rand Paul. What was wrong with Prop 19? Fred Gardner on California’s failed bid to legalize pot. John Sugg on the rise and fall of Steve Emerson, “terror expert.” Daniel Wolff on the framing of Ernest Withers” – was he an FBI informant? Subscribe now! If you find our site useful please: Click here to make a donation. CounterPunch books and t-shirts make great presents. Order CounterPunch By Email For Only $35 a Year!
Today's Stories November 23, 2010 Pam Martens Patrick Cockburn Ben Rosenfeld / November 22, 2010 Michael Hudson James Abourezk Paul Craig Roberts Sasan Fayazmanesh Richard Forno Gary Leupp Martha Rosenberg Lawrence Davidson Patrick Bond Michael Dickinson Website of the Day November 19 - 21, 2010 Alexander Cockburn Jeffrey St. Clair Mike Whitney Joanne Mariner Gareth Porter Karen Greenberg Thomas Christie, Pierre Sprey, Franklin Spinney et al. Rannie Amiri Dr. Jim Morgan Haiti's New Normal: Dispatch from Cite Soleil Lawrence Swaim Ramzy Baroud Ron Jacobs Robert Alvarez Russell Mokhiber P. Sainath David Macaray Carl Finamore Brian Tierney Franklin Lamb Gerald E. Scorse Joshua Brollier Missy Beattie Stewart J. Lawrence Brenda Norrell Christopher Brauchli Carol Polsgrove David Ker Thomson Dave Lindorff Jeff Deasy Bill Manson Clifton Ross Charles R. Larson Twain: the Last Word, One Hundred Years Later Richard Estes David Yearsley Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend November 18, 2010 Diana Johnstone Mike Whitney Behzad Yaghmaian Kenneth E. Hartman Norman Solomon Michael Winship Patrick Bond Joel S. Hirschhorn Website of the Day November 17, 2010 Vicente Navarro James Bovard Jonathan Cook Dean Baker Ralph Nader Nick Turse Sherry Wolf Alienation 101: the Online Learning Rip Off Judith Scherr Peter Certo Website of the Day
November 16, 2010 Pam Martens Richard Forno Gareth Porter Harry Browne Peter Lee Alan Farago Franklin Lamb Frank Green Sheldon Richman Thomas H. Naylor Website of the Day November 15, 2010 Michael Hudson Steve Hendricks Paul Craig Roberts Harvey Wasserman Lawrence Davidson Clancy Sigal David Macaray Tom Engelhardt Steven Fake Website of the Day November 12 - 14, 2010 Alexander Cockburn Patrick Cockburn Mike Whitney Ismael Hossein-Zadeh Dean Baker Gareth Porter William E. Alberts Bill Hatch Jonathan Cook Patrick Madden Mystifying the Crisis: Deadlock at the G20 Ramzy Baroud Rannie Amiri James Zogby Ron Jacobs Mark Weisbrot Tanya Golash-Boza Paul Wright Steve Early Martha Rosenberg Celia McAteer Larry Portis Michael Winship Brian McKenna Gerald E. Scorse Christopher Brauchli Roberto Rodriguez Dr. Susan Block J. T. Cassidy Linh Dinh Farzana Versey David Ker Thomson Phil Rockstroh Charles R. Larson David Swanson Saul Landau Kim Nicolini David Yearsley Poets' Basement Website of the Day
November 11, 2010 Peter Linebaugh Paul Craig Roberts Licensed to Kill Bill Quigley David Macaray Dissing the Boss: the NLRB Files a Landmark Complaint on Free Expression in the Workplace Liaquat Ali Khan / Jasmine Abou-Kassem Dedrick Muhammad Robert Bryce Alan Farago Website of the Day November 10, 2010 Allan Nairn Dean Baker Nicola Nasser Missy Beattie Sergio Ferrari Patrick Cockburn Dave Lindorff Mumia: New Lawyer, New Round Sherwood Ross Joshua Frank Website of the Day November 9, 2010 Uri Avnery Mike Whitney Jordan Flaherty Afshin Rattansi Annie Gell Dean Baker Dave Lindorff Stewart J. Lawrence Walter Brasch Website of the Day November 8, 2010 Paul Craig Roberts Thomas Healy David Swanson David Smith-Ferri Ralph Nader Ray McGovern Torture Sans Regrets: Bush's Confessions John Feffer Christopher Ketcham Website of the Day November 5 - 7, 2010 Alexander Cockburn Vijay Prashad Patrick Cockburn Darwin Bond-Graham
Mike Whitney Linn Washington, Jr. Rannie Amiri Ramzy Baroud Larry Portis Gary Leupp William Loren Katz Brian Cloughley Mark Weisbrot Rubén M. Lo Vuolo, Daniel Raventós / Pablo Yanes Joseph Nevins Neve Gordon Alan Farago Stewart J. Lawrence James R. King Ron Jacobs Franklin Lamb James McEnteer Richard Phelps Saul Landau David Ker Thomson The Long Argument Evelyn Pringle Joseph G. Ramsey Until Pigs Fly: the Morning After With Michael Moore Stanley Heller Missy Beattie Harvey Wasserman Billy Wharton Shamus Cooke Linh Dinh Windy Cooler Charles R. Larson Phyllis Pollack David Yearsley Website of the Weekend November 4, 2010 Doug Peacock Andrew Cockburn Iain Boal Paul Craig Roberts Chase Madar Dave Lindorff Russell Mokhiber Laura Flanders Website of the Day November 3, 2010 Alexander Cockburn Franklin C. Spinney Chris Floyd Dissatisfied Mind: Flickers of Hope in a Deadly Political Cycle William Blum Sheldon Richman Stephen Soldz Mark Weisbrot Stewart J. Lawrence Manuel Garcia, Jr. Election Night in Oakland Norman Solomon Website of the Day November 2, 2010 Vincent Navarro Ishmael Reed Uri Avnery Mark Driscoll Mike Whitney Linh Dinh David Macaray Randall Amster Wikilessons: War is a Joke, But It Isn't Funny Betsy Ross Yves Engler Website of the Day
November 1, 2010 Ted Honderich Steven Higgs John Ross Dean Baker Ralph Nader Justin E. H. Smith Marjorie Cohn Scott Boehm Brian Tierney Trish Kahle Martha Rosenberg Bathrobe Erectus: Feting Hugh Hefner Website of the Day
|
November 23, 2010 The Root Causes of the Defense Budget MessAnother Free Ride for the Pentagon?By FRANKLIN C. SPINNEY The Simpson-Bowles Deficit Commission will be reporting out its results in early December. We can expect that it will focus on domestic spending, especially entitlements, including Social Security. By the time the dust settles, it is quite likely that the Pentagon -- really the Military - Industrial - Congressional Complex -- will get a free ride for the reasons predicted by President Eisenhower in his farewell address. Given the short attention span of the mainstream media, we can expect the Commission's recommendations will be examined as if they are current news, devoid of historical context. But the question of context -- specifically, as it relates to how the spending behaviour of the US government managed to destabilize the improving trend in budget balances of the late 1990s (due in large part to the huge and growing surpluses of the Social Security Trust Fund in the 1990s as well as the effects of the economic expansion) -- is central to any rational determination of whether the enactment of Simpson-Bowles' recommendations will make things better or worse. Given the gravity of our economic situation, this kind of omission would simply compound the ongoing American Tragedy. Six months ago, the progressive leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) presented its analysis of the root causes of the explosion in the federal deficit (also attached below). CBPP laid out its assumptions quite clearly and it provided a baseline for evaluating the context of any recommendations emanating from Simpson - Bowles. But it is by no means a definitive baseline. One area not discussed by CBPP, for example, relates to long term impact on the deficit flowing out of the permanent increases in the core defense budget (that part of the defense program unrelated to our ongoing wars) put into place by the Bush Administration before 9-11, between January and August of 2001. The magnitude of these increases, which had nothing to do with any kind of change in the threats facing our country, can be seen in Slide #1 on page 2 of my June 4, 2002 statement to Congress (here), which is reproduced below: I constructed Slide #1 using the budget numbers that were inside inside the Pentagon's computers at different times between April 2001 and February 2002. The the sum of the "yellow" and "blue" bars, for example, denotes the total as of Aug 2001, well before the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The "red" and "blue" bars show the budget amounts we added after 9-11 and were in the computers as of February 2002. Bear in mind, the data in Slide 1 was never disputed by the senior budget officers from the DoD Comptroller's office (the organization that produced these numbers) who were among my "opposing" witnesses in the congressional hearing where I made this presentation (including the spectacularly inept Tina Jonas, who as the deputy under secretary of defense for financial management at the Department of Defense, was charged with reforming DoD's corrupt financial management system, as task at which she failed miserably). The impact of omitting the growth in the core defense budget that took place in the spring and summer of 2001 is important when trying to understand how we moved into our current deficit posture, not to mention any effort to fix the current mess in the Pentagon. That is because the deficit predictions attending Bush's tax cut plan were based on the long term effects of a nominal defense budget estimate made in his so-called "place holder" budget released, appropriately enough, on April Fools day of 2001 -- i.e., where the defense totals were portrayed by the "yellow" bars only. This nominal defense estimate assumed a constant dollar freeze in defense spending for the six years between Fiscal Years 2002 and 2007, as is clearly portrayed by the "yellow" bars in Slide 1. This long term defense "forecast" was a central part of the deliberately misleading effort to front load the Bush tax cuts by downplaying future consequences of those tax cuts with regard to the size and shape of the federal deficit. I can say this with certainty, because the detailed spending plans that were in the Pentagon's computers by August 2001 were based on budget guidance totals emanating from the Bush White House in late winter 2001. So, while Congress was debating the tax cuts in the context of a President's budget prediction that, among other things, the flat defense spending levels portrayed by the yellow bars in Slide #1, inside the Pentagon, we beavering away to increase those levels to the totals shown by "blue" bars in the core defense budget, an activity which was also authorized by the President. In addition to being a dishonest sleight of hand to sell the his tax cuts, Mad King George's flim flam operation in early 2001 fueled the long-standing, recklessly-destructive decision-making behaviour in the Pentagon summarized in our open letter to the Simpson-Bowles Commission, and discussed in more detail in my June 2002 statement to Congress, not to mention in my 1983 testimony to Senate Armed Services and Budget Committees, reported accurately in the 7 March 1983 issue of Time Magazin. But don't expect the mainstream media or the self-styled defense scholars, practitioners, and wannabees now rushing to demonstrate their relevance to deal aggressively with the corrupt financial management practices which are at the contextual core of the defense budget mess, as described in our open letter to the Simpson - Bowles commission. Franklin “Chuck” Spinney is a former military analyst for the Pentagon. He currently lives on a sailboat in the Mediterranean and can be reached at chuck_spinney@mac.com
CounterPunch Print Edition Exclusive! The Best Tea Partier Corporate Money Could Buy Pam Martens on the rise of the Tea Party’s Rand Paul. What was wrong with Prop 19? Fred Gardner on California’s failed bid to legalize pot. John Sugg on the rise and fall of Steve Emerson, “terror expert.” Daniel Wolff on the framing of Ernest Withers” – was he an FBI informant? Subscribe now! If you find our site useful please: Click here to make a donation. CounterPunch books and t-shirts make great presents. Order CounterPunch By Email For Only $35 a Year!
|
Now Available from CounterPunch Books! By Andrea Peacock
Yellowstone Drift:
Michael Neumann's Devastating Rebuttal of Alan Dershowitz Click Here to Buy! RED STATE REBELS: Edited by Buy End Times Now! of the Crossroads: HOW THE IRISH INVENTED SLANG By Daniel Cassidy AMERICAN BOOK AWARD! The Inside Story of the Shannon Five's Smashing Victory Over the
Grand Theft Pentagon Spell Albuquerque:
"Powerful and shocking ..
Humanitarian Imperialism By Jean Bricmont CITY BEAUTIFUL By Tennessee Reed |