Liberals pushing Obama to weaken defense

The Hill:

President Obama is facing mounting pressure from his party’s left flank to cut defense spending so more money can be spent on social programs.

A letter obtained by The Hill shows that liberal advocacy groups and lawmakers want Obama to seize a moment when Democrats control both Congress and the White House and scrap costly weapons programs they say have drained domestic coffers.

Hard economic times are intensifying pressure to choose guns or butter, particularly as the Bush administration is criticized for sharply raising spending on both.

The left’s demands pose a looming problem for the president, who traveled to Capitol Hill on Wednesday to build support for his budget, which has already drawn criticism from centrist Democrats for a 12 percent increase in domestic discretionary spending. This further fractures the party, with liberals focused on Obama’s call to hike defense spending by 4 percent.

The push from liberals comes at a time when Obama has pledged to increase U.S. troop levels in Afghanistan, and China and India have begun to emerge as major military and economic powers.

Embracing the idea while the country is still engaged in conflicts overseas would reaffirm the notion to those on the right and in the center that Obama is a classic liberal. But turning away the request risks alienating key members of his base.

The groups sent the letter to congressional Democratic leaders late Wednesday calling for steep cuts to the Joint Strike Fighter Program and other futuristic weapons plagued by production delays and cost overruns, with the money saved going to schools, healthcare and other social services.

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This is how liberals destroy countries. They waste defense spending on social program sinkhole investments. We should be increasing defense spending to replace equipment that has been used over the last six years in our war against the Islamic religious bigots. Cutting defense spending now makes no sense unless you want to make the country weaker and unable to resist our external enemies. When you consider the enormous increase in spending on liberal sinkhole programs that Obama is already pushing this can only be considered punitive attacks on the people who are defending us.