Yes, we do have a winner, as we always do. Bob takes home this week’s trophy for obsequiousness to the Pentagon above and beyond the call of duty, and in the face of all economic sense (his area of expertise, supposedly). After attacking fellow Postman Bob Woodward (for suggesting that the Pentagon could save $25 billion a year if it behaved more efficiently), Bob finishes with the following heartfelt moan:
“As late as 1990, defense spending constituted 24 percent of the federal budget and 5 percent of the economy (gross domestic product). In 2015, defense was 16 percent of the budget and 3 percent of GDP — and these figures were declining.”
Yes, but Bob, in 1990 we were still confronting, you know, the Soviet Union, which commanded the world’s largest army, and over 10 thousand nuclear-tipped missiles, a regime that maintained itself entirely upon the tattered illusion that it held the promise of the world’s salvation—the “Revolution”. The dream, and the Soviet Union, have both collapsed. We don’t need the enormous defense establishment that we built against the USSR and which we maintain, in defiance of all reason, 25 years after its demise. We are already wasting at least $100 billion a year on needless “defense”, and Bob, who prides himself upon being a sharp pencil, green-eyeshade kind of guy, can only wish that were wasting at least $50 billion more.
Afterwords
The $50 billion figure comes from Michael O’Hanlon of the Brookings Institution, whom Bob cites with vague approval. Of course, if we take Bob literally (which, presumably, would be quite rude), he’d like to see us kick defense spending up from around $600 billion a year to about a $1 trillion! Gee, Bob, you are really dumb! But I bet you do know how to make a general officer smile!
On the brighter side, Bob does recommend good books, or at least one: Herbert Hoover in the White House: The Ordeal of the Presidency, by Charles Rappleye.
