Doing less with more is a good buzzword. Will we vote for it? We have so far!

How much of our federal government responsibilities, to include defense and homeland security are being degraded, as in slowly but surely brought down? And why? After all we voted and decided on it, even if we didn’t understand. Even the method of drawing down our own defense is interesting if one gets into budgeting. It appears much of our vast defense budget is a jobs program as the priority, with our National defense and Homeland Security being second. Not to bore us, but those of us used to the older days of devoting taxpayer money to accomplishing the mission are now in the minority. So here is a minority report.

The USA is now a third world country, albeit the best third world country militarily. Our ability to act militarily and diplomatically has been degraded systematically by our elected Government. To make it sound simple, diplomacy works with a credible military threat. And we are slowly downgrading our military threat with budget cuts. And much of this downgrade has little to do with the educated professionalism of our fellow Americans in the military. Rather it has to do with jobs programs that drive up the costs of so many tools that our military uses.

So, do Americans understand that the old days of being a dominant super power in the world are long gone. Do our military types understand their prominence in our society and our role in the world has changed. While alliances and unities of effort will help, America is not in retreat, we have retreated. Is that what we want in 2008?

Here is a real American question. Is our military to project our politician’s ideas? Or is it to protect our politician’s ideas?