Rand Paul - "Time to Audit the Pentagon"

Tonight, Senator Rand Paul told a large crowd that it’s time to audit the Pentagon. Well, I couldn’t agree more. But that’s not where it should end. We need to take a look at military spending across the board. In 2011, we spent $711 BILLION on military spending and this doesn’t count all the money we spend bribing foreign dictators to do our bidding. $711 BILLION! That was 19% of the entire 2011 Budget. Could the average American citizen pay all the bills and put food on the table if they spent 19 cents of every dollar they earned on guns and bullets? The closest other country to us in 2011 only spent $143 Billion and that country is not $16 Trillion in debt.

We do need a strong national defense. I would suggest we could probably cut military spending 40% and still have the most powerful, technologically advanced military on the globe. Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan have stated that if they win the election they will INCREASE military spending. I guess I would have to ask:

• What for?
• What on?
• Where are you going to get the money to pay for it?
• What country or group do you plan on going to war with unconstitutionally next?

We need to defend our borders here, support our troops with proper pay and benefits and stop spending money simply for the benefit of the military industrial complex. So, auditing the Pentagon is a good first step. But if we are going to get our fiscal house in order, nothing should be considered off the table with regards to cuts. A good place to start would be cutting spending on the national offense, and stick to funding the national defense.