Posted on April
21, 2015
Thrifty Lefties?
Media fret over missile defense waste
by
Daniel
Clark
In reaction to David Willman’s
April 4th Los Angeles Times
article, the media have expressed alarm over wasteful missile defense spending. The report, which the Pentagon disputes, says
that several failed initiatives have cost the taxpayers $10 billion over ten
years. Although this only represents
about one-eighth of the Missile Defense Agency budget, liberals have seized
upon it to claim that our entire missile defense system is a boondoggle.
There
are good reasons to be skeptical of the Times
report. For one, it describes the
Sea-Based X-Band Radar system (SBX) as having been “mothballed,” because “its
field of vision is so narrow.” According to The
Fiscal Times, however, MDA spokesman Rick Lehner
says that SBX remains an active project, and that it was intentionally made to
have a narrow scope in order to track small objects with precision. In other words, what Willman
presents as a terminal defect in SBX is actually a description of how it is
designed to work.
While it’s true that the other three projects
described in the article have been shelved, the conclusion to which the reader
is led is that every dollar spent on them has been wasted. The likelihood that they yielded valuable
information to be used on other projects, or that the logistical obstacles that
halted them might someday be overcome, is not considered. Instead, the conclusions a casual reader
would take from the article are that all of our missile defense efforts have
amounted to nothing, and that such a result was inevitable from the start.
That’s completely inaccurate, and dangerously so,
insofar as it may affect future debates over missile defense funding. On the other hand, at least it puts certain
liberals on record in opposition to wasteful federal spending. That being the case, they are presumably also
concerned about the following:
* President Obama’s $840 billion stimulus package –
Based on the theory that unprecedented levels of deficit spending can generate
economic growth, its failure should be obvious, now that Recovery Summer VI is
around the corner. As long as the
liberal media are becoming budget hawks, they might observe that $840 billion is
greater than $10 billion.
* “Cash for Clunkers” – This plan subsidized trade-ins
of older cars for newer, more energy efficient replacements. The program only lasted one month, yet cost
the taxpayers $3 billion, far more than the $2.2 billion that the SBX system
has cost to date.
*
Head Start – The early education program, created in 1965, has shown no
measurable benefit to its participants.
This, according to no less an authority than the Department of Health
and Human Services, which administers it.
Nevertheless, we proceeded to waste $8.6 billion on it in 2014 alone.
* The National Endowment for the Arts – Its defenders
argue that the funding it receives is negligible, and yet vitally
important. Neither of these is
true. Over the past decade, the
taxpayers have spent $1.5 billion on it, while producing nothing of substance.
* The Department of Energy – This creation of Jimmy
Carter’s will cost roughly $28 billion this year. Its mission consists of dispensing corporate
welfare to alternative energy flim-flam artists,
promoting the usual “climate change” hysteria, and obstructing genuine domestic
energy production.
When controversies arise over examples like these, the
news media are not nearly so judgmental about government waste. The simple fact that they continue to
editorially support Obama tells us that frugality is not the basis of their
opposition to our missile defenses. In
fact, if the MDA were entirely wasteful, and its projects wholly ineffective,
that would suit them just fine.
Willman
reveals as much when he characterizes President Clinton’s missile defense
system as the good, responsible one. In
reality, Clinton had no missile defense system.
All he did was partially defund and dismantle the Reagan-Bush era
program, give it a new acronym, and claim it as his own. Sure, Clinton opposed air and sea-based
defenses like those Willman calls “expensive flops,”
but he also restricted the development of land-based defenses by holding us to
the ABM Treaty, even though it had been nullified by the demise of the Soviet
Union.
To liberals like Clinton, Obama and the LA Times, strength is provocative and
therefore dangerous. Thus, they’d rather
maintain a “strategic balance” than give America the upperhand. Their fear, then, is that we might actually succeed
in creating a reliable missile defense system.
If, instead, they could ensure failure by adding a mere $10 billion to
the national debt, they’d consider that money well spent.
The Shinbone: The
Frontier of the Free Press