The liberals' missing link: war defense and spending priorities

As another  deadline breathes down our neck for Congress to agree on the budget, it is not just the Right that is basing their priorities on ideology, so is the Left. What I am hearing is the line: if we just cut defense and/or cut out  the budget for conducting war or something that looks like it, then we could have more money for education, entitlements, environment, etc. One missing link in that logical equation is the power make it happen. 

So long as the House is held by Republicans, the Tea Party rages on determined to shrink spending and federal debt on the backs of discretionary social spending, and defense contracts and special interests benefit   members' of Congress' districts, the power for the Democratic left  to shift spending from one line item of the budget to another line item is nil.

Likewise, the Liberal argument that we should shift the tax burden to the rich to fund entitlements or increase taxes in someway is likewise a pie in the sky political dream.  There was not the political will or power to even end the Bush tax cuts to the rich.   Instead, the left needs to give serious thought to the recommendations of the Simpson-Bowles commission to restructure the entire tax system and to embrace the Commissions' analysis that the federal deficit reduction cannot rely just on government spending cuts, but the revenue side must also be boosted in the process and that the Health Care Reform Act is indeed a necessary contribution to entitlement cost reduction.  These are positions liberals can embrace.
There is nothing wrong with the Left making their case, or setting their priorities as worthy goals, but their advocacy should not be at the expense of weakening either the President's chances for re-election or for stopping the GOP from taking over the Senate, too, in 2012. The left should not be tilting  windmills given the fact that the nation is so evenly divided and only a few states shifting votes one way or the other could
make their goals even more of an unreachable dream.

Simpson-Bowles recommendations for overhauling the tax structure would not only have the benefit of shuffling the deck to lower taxes for all, but it would have a profound political benefit as well: ending special interest tax breaks that cause institutional corruption.. Members of Congress are  being held hostage to campaign donations    that would benefit their contributors. No campaign finance reform legislation would ever have a greater impact in  reforming a  corrupt system than that.

I also depart from the left on one important issue: a blanket tying of our hands in conduct of a foreign policy or national security goals in the future. in advance to strangle our ability to react to changing and future circumstances.  I agree with Pres. Obama  that war is sometimes necessary in the pursuit of peace. Those who oppose military action in instances in which humanitarian causes or sending messages to others are at stake have an unrealistic view of protecting national interests.  Both of those are at stake in the Libyan action: Failure to act would have sent the message that the US still supported oppressive dictatorships even when the future leaders of that country rise up in revolt. The future success of US foreign policy in the middle eastern region depends upon our finesse in riding the tiger of the youth revolts. The old order changeth...and if the US can be seen as supporting the new order, we may have the ability to  yank the rug out from under such ilk as Al Qaeda, who has garnered sympathy and support from those who were in personal revolt against the 30 to 40 year history of oppressive leaders who were backed by the US.

We also cannot provide military support for every revolution in the Mid East.. We know that.  Criteria for intervention must be support from the Arab League as well as  military feasibility, and we must have multi lateral support, or else we will look like he Imperialists the youth had always supposed were were. Support, other than military intervention, should  also be an option if military support is not feasible.

 One other consideration  might be the impact on our tussle with Iran. So much of the Arabian politics is tied up in that struggle between Sunnis and Shia  and we need to be sensitive to it.  Both Syria and Bahrain are part of that complex picture; Libya is not. One of the unanticipated negative fall outs of our Iraq invasions was to upset the balance of power..and strengthen our true enemy in the region, Iran.

 We cannot bull ourselves into such complex situations without carefully calculating the impact on the entire region, not just  the impact on  one country.