Rubio: Give the Pentagon a Blank Check

by Deacon Blues

This is one reason why the GOP contest for president in 2016 will be so much fun to watch: the opportunity to see competing Senate Republicans trash each other on fiscal austerity and defense spending. Marco Rubio, Lindsey Graham, and Ted Cruz all agree that we should spend whatever is needed to jack up the defense budget while Rand Paul wants any increased defense spending to be offset by corresponding cuts elsewhere.

If it were up to Cruz, Graham, and Rubio, they would take the easy way out and hide behind the bloody shirt of terrorism to scare everyone into another decade of Pentagon blank checks while slashing spending at home and calling for tax cuts. Paul at least wants some degree of integrity and transparency, and demands that his opponents have the guts to pay for their budget busting. Instead, the large majority of his caucus, including the GOP's current Churchill Tom Cotton insist on ignoring their Tea Party roots and demand a "spend first, ask questions later" foreign policy.

The more things change, the more they stay the same. Lightweights like Rubio, Graham, and Cruz want to "man-up" through spending, while empty soldiers like Cotton hide behind their service. This GOP Congress doesn't even have the guts to vote on an updated war resolution, yet their 2016 pretenders want to spend without any plan or strategy. Haven't we been here before?