Dems want to cut defense amid tensions

We live in tense times. Earlier this month, North Korea revealed a large enough number of missiles to conceivably overwhelm the United States’ defense against them, according to Politico.

Images from state-run media showed North Korea’s military rolling 10 to 12 Hwasong-17 intercontinental ballistic missiles down the streets of Pyongyang during a parade.

“It punches a hole in 20-plus years of U.S. homeland missile defense policy predicated on defending against a ‘limited’ missile threat from North Korea,” said Ankit Panda, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and author of “Kim Jong Un and the Bomb.”

Last summer, China issued a wakeup call to the West when it tested a hypersonic missile that “went around the world, dropped off a hypersonic glide vehicle that glided all the way back to China, that impacted a target in China,” General John Hyten, the outgoing vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff told CBS News.

And Russian President Vladimir Putin said Tuesday he intends to suspend the New START arms treaty, which limits the abilities of the U.S. and Russia to produce and launch nuclear weapons.

What a great time to slice the defense budget.

Progressive Reps. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) and Mark Pocan (D-Wisc.), co-chairs of the Defense Spending Reduction Caucus, reintroduced their “People Over Pentagon Act ” Wednesday. It would slash the Defense Department’s budget by $100 billion and reallocate the dollars to programs such as infrastructure, health care and education, as The Hill reported.

“Year after year, this country pours billions into our already-astronomical defense budget without stopping to question whether the additional funding is actually making us safer,” Lee said in a release.

“Cutting just $100 billion could do so much good: it could power every household in the US with solar energy; hire one million elementary school teachers amid a worsening teacher shortage; provide free tuition for two out of three public college students; or cover medical care for 7 million veterans,” the congresswoman added.

It could also help the country bolster its countermeasures to a missile strike by a hostile nation.

There’s no shortage of weapon-rattling tyrants hitting the launch button for test runs.

In terms of covering health care, the Department of Defense provides it to service members, retirees, and their eligible family members.

Cutting the defense budget would ostensibly move health care funds for service members and retirees over to the Department of Veterans Affairs. Not exactly a win-win.

Biden signed a $858 billion defense authorization bill for fiscal 2023, allocating $817 billion to the Department of Defense.

The high increase from last year’s DOD budget — $768 billion — has caused some Democrats to cry foul over excessive spending.

Where was the outrage at the $1.2T infrastructure law? Nowhere — because the law aligned perfectly with the progressive agenda.

“More defense spending does not guarantee safety,” Pocan said.

If it brings us on par with countries splashing out on ICBMS to threaten our country, it all but does.