Perspective

Perspective is everything in politics. The other day I was trying to explain to a coworker of mine (we are both government contractors and are thus somewhat concerned about the potential government shutdown) what exactly the Democrats and Republicans are arguing about in the budget. Most of you may know that the scuffle is over how much money will be cut from the non-defense, discretionary portion of the budget. That is, 12% of the entire budget. The other 88% is off limits. And, of course, both parties want cuts to that 12%. It's just that one party wants a little bit more than the other. The difference between the Democrats' cuts and the Republicans' cuts is Uncle Sam's pocket change.

Then I read this interesting post from Andrew Sullivan, who, once again, nails it.

The Libya adventure has already cost more than the discretionary spending cuts desired by the GOP. Under Bush, no war was budgeted, of course - just as new entitlements were not budgeted. The silver lining of Obama's war is that it may finally, for all the wrong reasons, persuade the GOP that war-spending is spending too.

I don't agree with Sullivan's anti-Libyan war bent. I support the invasion. And I am not sure if the lesson we are to learn is that defense spending is too high or that the discretionary spending cuts are insignificant. Probably both.

Either way, it puts the argument into perspective.

Cross posted at The Cross Culturalist.