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In the fall of 2010, I heard the following comment on Fox News: “The government should spend more on the war in Afghanistan in order to fight terrorism. The problem is that the government has gotten into entitlements”  (e.g. food stamps, public housing, social security, medicare, medicaid).  This is distinct from saying that the federal government should concentrate on foreign policy and military, with entitlements being funded and decided by the states. Such a statement would be for federalism rather than about priorities.  Too often, it is difficult to discern whether republican office-holders are more interested in greater federalism or a different sense of government in general. The republicans are not saying they want a smaller government, for they want more military spending.  I believe the republican vision is for a different sort of government, rather than for a return to federalism (i.e., more of a balance of power/domains between the state governments and the U.S. Government). Republicans believe that government (regardless of the level) exists to fund foreign affairs and war…not to fund poor people.  That is, military contractors rather than poor people. I think this political ideology is fairly unique in the world today.  Certainly most Europeans in the E.U. view redistributive rights for the basics needed for living as a legitimate part of government.  In contrast, many in the U.S. believe that the market mechanism (i.e., resources as commodities produced and distributed by private enterprise) trumps basic needs (as the market does not guarantee that the needs are met, whereas a redistributive sustenance right does). Perhaps the basic question is whether any citizen of the United States should be allowed to go without necessities (basic food, shelter and health-care).  In other words, it can and indeed should be asked whether the right to survival (i.e., life) is part of the social contract of the American political society.  I suggest that the media and our representatives ought to participate in a sustained debate on this question directly, rather than deviating to particular hot-button issues.

According to James Madison in Federalist #51, “the weaker individual is not secured against the violence of the stronger” in the state of nature. Nor is the weaker secured against starvation and sickness.  Life, as Thomas Hobbes writes, is “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short” in the state of nature.  The social contract undergirding a political society is meant to alleviate the fear of the want of necessities (and self-defense) while working for the happiness of the members.  In other words, there is a right to shelter, food and medical care in a social contract that takes its members out of the state of nature; otherwise, the society is marginal as an answer to the insecurity that exists in the state of nature.

Therefore, I contend that those Americans who want to extend the Bush tax cuts for those making over $200,000 and cut unemployment compensation are essentially enabling their greed to compromise the social contract.  If that contract is weakened and some members of society placed back in the state of nature, then it is important for the wealthy to realize that their own right of property is based on that social contract.  In other words, cutting off food and shelter for others may free them up to take your property, for they are no longer protected by the social contract against the state of nature.  If sustenance as a right is abridged, then so too is the right of property, because neither sustenance nor property is guaranteed in the state of nature.

"The most significant threat to our national security is our debt."
Micheal Mullen, Jount Chiefs of Staff Chairman, August, 2010.

The defense budget in 2010--$664 billion (not counting the Iraq and Afghanistan wars)--equalled that of the rest of the world combined.  One dollar of every five spent by the U.S. Government was for defense. The amount spent represents 80% growth since 2000. Why?  One reason: the big weapon systems oriented to fighting other empires (e.g., Russia and China). For example, $600 million for the littoral combat ship and $13 billion for amphibious landing vehicles (whose purpose has even been questioned by Sec. of Defense William Gates).  It would seem that the military contractors--the military industrial complex, moreover--are firmly entrenched and in control. That is to say, the defense spending is indicative of the influence of big business over government in the United States.  That this influence goes unhampered may tell us something about the leanings of our societal norms.

The House Republicans' "Pledge to America" formulated in 2010 promises to exempt the military from any cost-cutting that might be entailed in reducing deficit spending. Even so, Sen. Tom Coburn wrote, "Taking defense spending off the table is indefensible. We need to protect our nation, not the Pentagon's sacred cows."  This statement is significant because it gets at the problem of the debt and the influence of big business in government.  That is to say, it kills two birds with one stone.  Indeed, these two birds may well be the achilles heel of the United States as a viable entity or going concern.  The fatal flaw may well be within, rather than from an external threat.  This is the meaning of Micheal Mullen's statement above. To be sure, Republicans believe that defense is government's core function. Along with regulating interstate commerce, this is particularly true of the federal government.  It is less true, I would argue, of the state governments.  So the plank can be viewed as primarily federalist rather than in terms of limited government itself.  The probably-unfixable $14 tillion US Government debt and the consolidation of public governance in the U.S. into the federal government at the expense of federalism (and the checks therein) are related; both are indications of a basic inbalance that is unsustainable. In the face of this state of affairs, it is telling that the question in late 2010 was who should continue to get a tax.

Source: Michael Crowley, "The Sacred Cows," <em>Time</em>, December 13, 2010, pp. 55-58.