Sound advice from US Senator Mike Lee (R-UT): “As a rule, Americans shouldn’t trust any bill so large that it has to be delivered by handcart.” He’s referring to the latest “National Defense Authorization Act,” which weighs in at more than 3,000 pages.

Stopping at “Americans shouldn’t trust any bill” would improve Lee’s rule, but he’s a politician, so let’s give him some (cough) Lee-way and credit him with a good start.

There’s plenty of bad stuff crammed into the latest NDAA, not least renewal of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which should really be called the “Illegally and Unconstitutionally Spying on Americans Act.” But as usual when it comes to NDAAs, I prefer to focus on the over-arching badness of the thing.

According to the congressional conference report on the bill, it “allocates $841.4 billion to the Pentagon, $32.4 billion to the Department of Energy and $438 million for other ‘defense-related activities.'”

That’s $1.3 trillion, or nearly $3,900 from each American adult and child, to maintain a gargantuan military machine that has about as much to do with “national defense” as the latest reboot of Frasier has to do with the original Cheers.

At present, the US armed forces include more than 1.3 million active duty troops and about 800,000 reservists.  That’s about the same level as 50 years ago, when the US was just extricating itself from the Vietnam quagmire, when various automations (such as drones) were in their infancy, and when warm infantry bodies were a much bigger factor in war-fighting compared to today’s emphasis on air power.

In theory, at least, the US is at something called “peace” these days. Instead of fighting its own wars, it mostly farms them out to proxies like Ukraine and Israel, or at least “partners” with indigenous puppet regimes for manpower (e.g. Afghanistan).

And in truth, the US has few if any “defense” worries apart from the blowback its direct and proxy misadventures tend to culminate in. No other power in the world, let alone the western hemisphere, possesses the ability  to invade, conquer, and occupy a United States with so much as 1/10th of its current military capabilities.

The US “defense” budget isn’t about “defense.” It’s equal parts corporate welfare, workfare for poor and middle class youth who need money for college,  and “mad money” for politicians to get their megalomaniac on, trying to run the rest of the world as viciously and incompetently as they run their own little piece of it, with.

Which explains why it will pass in something like its current form. Lobbyists and politicians see lots of money — lots of YOUR money — and they want it. Ideally, all of it.

As I explain every time an NDAA bill comes up, remember that “defense spending” could be slashed by 90% without significant negative impact on “the national defense.”

Having remembered that, what to do with the knowledge? I guess you could call “your” congressional representatives, but that won’t do any good. They’ll keep blowing that money … as long as you keep giving it to them.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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“All [Donald Trump] did was impose tariffs, which raise the prices for every American,” former New Jersey governor Chris Christie pointed out in the  December 6 GOP primary debate. “You can’t say he was good on trade because he didn’t trade. He didn’t change one Chinese policy in the process. He failed on it.”

Christie’s correct  that tariffs make the American consumers who pay them poorer, and that Trump’s “trade war” with China hasn’t resulted in “victory” when it comes to policy changes on that government’s part.

But does that make Trump’s tariff obsession a “failure?”

Success and failure are measured in terms of accomplishing, or not accomplishing, particular objectives.

If we assume that Trump’s actual aim was to increase the ratio of American exports to Chinese imports, then yes, he failed. Miserably. The US “trade deficit” with China has increased, not decreased, since Trump’s inauguration.

That’s actually kind of good news. The term “trade deficit” sounds bad, but what it actually means is that (in aggregate) we’re giving up less and less of our stuff in return for more and more of their stuff.

The bad news is that we’re paying more and more for … well, everything. That’s not ENTIRELY due to trade policy, but it is to some extent. And instead of assuming that tariffs are intended to address “trade deficits,” it’s worth looking at who benefits from those tariffs versus who suffers.

Christie took notice of one suffering demographic: American consumers. Tariffs jack up our prices.

Chinese workers also suffer if there aren’t as many jobs making as much stuff (whether for domestic consumption or export).

The beneficiaries of US tariffs on Chinese goods are American businesses who compete with Chinese businesses to make stuff and sell that stuff to us.

Simplified version (there are factors other than the ones I’m noticing here):

Suppose you can buy a Chinese-made widget for $1.00, but an American-made widget costs $1.25. You’re more likely to buy the Chinese widget.

But if the US government puts a 30-cent tariff on Chinese widgets, the American company can increase its price to $1.29 and still sell its version to you more cheaply than the Chinese version.

Sure, you pay 29 cents more (or four cents more, if you preferred American-made widgets for some reason other than price point) for the same widget that used to cost you $1.00/$1.25 — but hey, that American company’s owners make out like bandits, even after they pay lobbyists to talk politicians into imposing the tariff.

The real question is whether politicians like Trump are screwing you because they really believe their pro-tariff nonsense, or whether they’re just screwing you on behalf of their Big Business contributors.

That question pretty much answers itself.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

“You people of the South don’t know what you are doing,” William Tecumseh Sherman told David F. Boyd in 1860. “This country will be drenched in blood, and God only knows how it will end. It is all folly, madness, a crime against civilization! You people speak so lightly of war; you don’t know what you’re talking about. War is a terrible thing!”

Nine years later, Sherman re-emphasized that sentiment in an address to the Michigan Military Academy’s graduating class of 1879: “You don’t know the horrible aspects of war. I’ve been through two wars and I know. I’ve seen cities and homes in ashes. I’ve seen thousands of men lying on the ground, their dead faces looking up at the skies. I tell you, war is Hell!”

In between, Sherman became one of the most famous — and, in the south, infamous — fighting generals of The Late Unpleasantness, aka the Civil War. Every time I quote him in a column, I receive an outraged comment or two from fellow southerners. His “March to the Sea,” culminating in his presentation of Savannah, Georgia to US president Abraham Lincoln as a “Christmas gift” 159 years ago this month, remains a sore spot down here.

I’m not going to stop quoting him, though. He’s someone I’d like American soldiers and policymakers to listen to.

When it comes to speaking knowledgeably about war, few can boast the credentials he amassed on the subject — two wars, one as a junior officer and one as a general, rounding out his career with command of the entire US Army.

As for politics: “I hereby state, and mean all I say,” he told Harper’s Weekly in 1871, “that I never have been and never will be a candidate for President; that if nominated by either party I should peremptorily decline; and even if unanimously elected I should decline to serve.” He reaffirmed that in 1884 when approached about seeking the Republican presidential nomination.

These days, most American generals seem to have one foot in the armed forces, one in politics, and both racing toward the revolving door that leads to big lobbying salaries from “defense” contractors.

While “civilian control of the military” strikes me as a good thing, there’s something to be said for emphasizing Sherman in America’s service academies and boot camps. To the extent that they advise politicians, officers should be recommending against, not encouraging, perpetual and deadly foreign military adventurism.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY