Gene Healy points this out in an a Cato Op-Ed, that if members of Congress are just now beginning to have "an adult conversation" on our budget deficit, what were they doing up until now? Having a baby conversation?

As the national debt continues to climb past $14 trillion, the importance of subjecting all government programs — including, or even especially, military spending — to the budgetary knife seems increasingly obvious.  However, if that figure alone isn’t persuasive, here’s an excerpt from an interesting article on our security budget:

The bloated and sacrosanct security budget – the military, domestic security and intelligence budgets –all saw rapid growth under President Bush when the DoD doubled its budget. Under President Obama the trend has continued with record military, intelligence and domestic security budgets….

President Obama has proposed the largest DoD budget since World War II, $553 billion (not including war funding and nuclear weapons funding in the Department of Energy). Much attention has been shined on Secretary of Defense Gates’ proposal to “cut” $78 billion in the Pentagon budget. Those “cuts” take place over five years with reductions taking place after the 2012 election in 2014 and 2015. And, the “cuts” do not include the cost of wars. The Afghanistan war alone could eat up projected “savings” and if the CIA’s war in Pakistan escalates that will be an even bigger budget item. Further, we have not seen what the continuing U.S. military footprint in Iraq will cost. These projected cuts are more image than reality….

To get a sense of the absurdity of protecting all military spending, the federal government spends $500 million each year for military marching bands. In comparison it spends $430 million a year on public broadcasting.

Though I don’t agree with 100% of the article, it’s most definitely worth a read.  Hat tip to Tom Woods.

Tea Party "favorite" John "Could you pass me the Kleenex" Boehner has already strayed from the fiscal conservatism that he loves to lecture the American public on. When asked about Congress not raising the debt limit, Boehner responded, "That would be a financial disaster not only for our country, but for the worldwide economy...Remember, the American people on Election Day said we want to cut spending and we want to create jobs. You can't create jobs if you default on the federal debt."

Except who said anything about defaulting on the national debt? Refusal to raise the debt ceiling would not result in a default. If the debt ceiling is not raised - something which seems out of the question as of now - the Treasury would have to pay off debt obligations and interest before it could use that money for other things (this would, however, be limited to discretionary spending).  So, whatever money is leftover after servicing the debt could be used by the government. This would force the government to make the drastic cuts that the Tea Party politicians promised to make. 

We are $14 trillion in debt, the Republicans in Congress have proposed considerable (though inadequate) cuts, but the president seems to have other plans.  From Fox News:

President Obama will call for new government spending on infrastructure, education and research in his State of the Union address Tuesday, sharpening his response to Republicans in Congress who are demanding deep budget cuts, people familiar with the speech said.