Clashing Over Budget Slashing

The Tea Party is well known for their efforts to reduce government spending and the federal deficit. The defense budget is a Tea Party nightmare. It costs billions of dollars and according to the Center of Defense Information, the military has decreased in size, military equipment is older, and the army is at a historic low for readiness to fight. Naturally, some Tea Party members are looking to reduce the defense budget, which would also result in shrinking government.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates wants to cut major weapons programs and is surprised to receive support from the Tea Party. While the Tea Party is all for a strong defense, they believe that they is plenty of waste and fluff to be cut out. Their interest in cutting the defense budget signifies how on certain issues they stray from their conservative roots and agree with liberal members of Congress.

As a result of the Tea Party's stance on defense, they are isolating themselves from the GOP. The GOP believes that a strong military is a constitutional responsibility so there should be no reduction in the defense budget even though it would require the United States to borrow even more money, thus increasing the national debt. However, some Tea Party members actually disagree and would like to reduce government spending, but not the defense budget. They also try to generally oppose all government spending, rather than pointing out specific budgets (excluding bailouts, heath care).

It will be interesting to see which side the majority of Tea Party agree with. Will they still support Gates or will they give in to the urgings of the GOP? An excellent way for the Tea Party to slash government spending and size is to simply reduce the defense budget, which will result in a fiscally responsible United States, but they will need to show a unified front in order to do so.