An interesting read

[GeoFisher]

Never thought I'd feel this way, but I miss Bill Clinton right now. His administration was the last one to balance the federal budget. After all what harm is a good cigar among friends anyway?

I agree with everything you said EXCEPT the garbage about Clinton.

Lets not forget that he cut our military to the BONE.......why do you think we didn't have the troops to fight in Afghanistan AND Iraq. Clinton cut the following:

709,000 REGULAR (ACTIVE DUTY) PERSONNEL.

293,000 RESERVE TROOPS.

EIGHT STANDING ARMY DIVISIONS!

20 AIR FORCE AND NAVY AIR WINGS WITH 2,000 COMBAT AIRCRAFT

232 STRATEGIC BOMBERS.

9 STRATEGIC BALLISTIC MISSILE SUBMARINES WITH 3,114 NUCLEAR WARHEADS ON 232 MISSILES.

500 ICBMs WITH 1,950 WARHEADS.

FOUR AIRCRAFT CARRIERS AND 121 SURFACE COMBAT SHIPS AND SUBMARINES PLUS ALL THE SUPPORT BASES, SHIPYARDS, AND LOGISTICAL ASSETS NEEDED TO SUSTAIN SUCH A NAVAL FORCE.

So yea, I guess if you CUT THAT much you will save some smack, but at WHAT COST.

BTW......the cuts made up the 3rd largest army in the world at the time.

Later,

Geo

[apb]

DH, I have no problems with what you suggest.

JCB, Yeah, thats probably the one I was thinking of. A small start, though I dont think either side did much after that.

Geo, Russia had collapsed by then. Much of what you note was to keep them in check. Deficit was running away and had to cut somewhere. In times of peace, much easier to cut that stuff. Given what we are doing in Afganistan, much of what you mention would be of little use due to the lack of targets.

Andrew

[HURRICANEBOB]

A lot of the cuts were initiated by Bush:

The peace dividend began with a Bush
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Buzz up!ShareThisAt a Republican debate in Boca Raton on Jan. 24, 2008, Rudy Giuliani repeated his claim that Bill Clinton is to blame for shrinking the nation's military.
"I think we should increase the size of our military substantially to overcome the damage that Bill Clinton did with the peace dividend," he said, adding that "a lot of the cause of (the smaller military force) was Bill Clinton's peace dividend, in which he cut the military 25 and 30 percent."

We've covered this topic in two previous items, one for Giuliani and one for a similiar claim made earlier by Mitt Romney. But because this misleading claim is new to many voters who are just tuning into the campaign, we'll reiterate what we've said before.

Romney made his claim in April 2007, saying that, "Following the end of the Cold War, President Clinton began to dismantle our military. He reduced our forces by 500,000. He retired almost 80 ships. Our spending on national defense dropped from over 6 percent of GDP to 3.8 percent today."

The two Republicans are correct that military forces were reduced significantly under Clinton. The active-duty military totaled 1.8-million at the start of his presidency in 1993 and declined to 1.4-million in 2000. They are also correct that the naval fleet shrank dramatically. The Navy had 454 ships in 1993, but as vessels were retired and not replaced, the fleet was down to 341 by 2000.

But they are selectively choosing numbers that make it appear that the military cuts were Clinton's alone. In fact, the cuts were prompted by the end of the Cold War during the presidency of President George H.W. Bush, a Republican.

During Bush's presidency, he and Congress agreed to a sharp drop in military personnel. Active-duty military declined from 2.2-million to 1.8-million. Total defense forces also shrank, from 3.3-million to 2.9-million.

The Republicans are trying to portray Clinton and the Democrats as weak on defense and to make the peace dividend look like a partisan effort. But contrary to the Republicans' claims, the post-Cold War shrinkage of the U.S. military was very much a bipartisan effort. It began under a Republican president and a Democratic Congress and continued under a Democratic president and a Republican Congress.

And so we find, as we did before, that this claim is Half True.

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-me...an-with-a-bush