Is Buck McKeon (R-CA) A Big Spender Or Just Off Message?

This quote from House Armed Services Committee Chairman Buck McKeon (R-CA) stands out in an excellent story in yesterday’s The Washington Post by Scott Wilson and Greg Jaffe on how the White House worked with the Pentagon on the military spending strategy Defense Secretary Leon Panetta announced last week:

“an honest and valid strategy for national defense can’t be founded on the premise that we must do more with less or less with less.”

Yes, I know this is just the chairman of an authorization committee defending his jurisdiction. And, yes, I know that McKeon is from a state that relies heavily on federal military spending.

But “do more with less” and a smaller government supposedly are basic principles of the GOP these days. What is McKeon saying?

  1. The Pentagon budget can never be reduced?
  2. Efficiencies in the military aren’t possible?
  3. The amount we spend on defending the country shouldn’t be related to the need?
  4. The GOP leadership is wrong when it demands doing more with less?
  5. The polls that consistently show Americans want the government to spend less in many areas of the budget but especially at the Pentagon are incorrect?
  6. If we can’t do more with less or less with less, are we supposed to do less with more?
  7. Federal spending, no matter what it’s for and regardless of whether it’s needed, is a good thing?

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About Stan Collender 126 Articles

Affiliation: Qorvis Communications

Stan Collender is a former New Yorker who, after getting a degree from the University of California, Berkeley, moved to Washington to get it out of his system. That was more than 30 years ago.

During most of his career, Collender has worked on the federal budget and congressional budget process, including stints on the staff of the House and Senate Budget Committees; founding the Federal Budget Report, a newsletter that was published for almost two decades; and for the past 11 years writing a weekly column for NationalJournal.com and now RollCall.com.

He is currently a managing director for Qorvis Communications, where he spends most of his time working with and for financial services clients.

Visit: Capital Gains and Games

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