Republicans Love Government

Now, I’m not in the business of ranking each of these different Republican loves of government (feels too much like Sophie’s Choice), but I’d imagine our armed forces are pretty close to the top of the list—if not #1.  For example: Bradley Fighting Vehicles ($3 million)—pretty cool; F-15 Eagles ($30 million)—simply awesome; Aircraft carriers ($4.5 billion)—even awesomer (it’s a word in my house); and the missile defense system ($133 billion so far)—about as cool Maverick and Goose being played by Sinatra and Clooney (respectively) at their peaks.  (For Sinatra, I’m thinking Sinatra at the Sands and for Clooney, Out of Sight, which never got the recognition it deserved.)

And let’s not forget the troops.  Everyone supports the actual men and women serving in our armed forces, particularly Republicans.  However, aren’t our troops federal government employees?  In fact—in round numbers—there are 3 million federal civilian employees, including the Postal Service and Department of Homeland Security.¹  On top of that, there’s 1.4 million active duty military personnel.²  If you put those numbers together, approximately one-third (32%) of all federal employees are troops.  But, that’s ignoring the contributions of those in the military reserves, which is another 848,000 troops.  Adding them into the mix and now our troops constitute 43% of all federal employees.  And if you factor in that 729,000 of those civilian employees work for the Defense Department, that’s 57% of total federal employees working for the military.  Best I can tell, supporting the troops means (conservatively) supporting anywhere from one-third to one-half of all federal government employees.

Sticking with big numbers, let’s talk budget.  Since 1980, Defense Department outlays have represented anywhere from 27% in 1987 (Reagan) to 15% in 1999 (Clinton) and now sits at around 19% (Obama).³  To keep it simple, let’s just say that roughly one out of every five dollars the federal government spends is on the military (not even including veterans affairs, foreign military aid, etc.)  Loving the military but denying your love of government, is sort of like saying you buy Playboy for the articles.  (That may be a stretch because it’s doubtful 20% of Playboy is articles, but my memory is a bit hazy from my sophomore year of college when several of my roommates and I purchased a Playboy subscription for another roommate as a gift for “him.”)

Ridiculously unnecessary openness about my college years aside, this does beg the question, “Why do Republicans fail to recognize the military as part of government?”  You can’t have a military without taxes and you can’t raise (and spend) taxes without government.  OK, since this is a good question for every single one of my posts, maybe I should add it to the list of goals for the blog—discovering why Republicans refuse to admit their love of government.  I’m open to theories…

BTW – There’s no way I can write a blog about the ways Republicans love government and sacrifice 25% of my material to one posting.  So, expect to see other more specific postings about military loves in the future (e.g. each of the branches, the missile defense system, etc.).  I’m simply not creative enough to avoid coming back to this well when it’s a slow week…