WashingtonExaminer.com  |  January 8, 2012

Obama Guts Military But Gives Raises To Bureaucrats

By: Examiner Editorial

President Barack Obama has a quiet lunch with a small group of supporters at a
restaurant in Washington, Friday, Jan. 6, 2012. Photo by AP

Hard facts ought to prevail where American security is concerned. This applies equally whether the issue at hand is the geopolitical consequences of ill-advised defense cuts or the possibility that waste and fraud in military procurement might result in the deaths of American soldiers. It is in that spirit that we view President Obama's announcement last week at the Pentagon of his new national defense doctrine. While there will be much more to say here in the future, two points stand out for now.

First, Obama claimed that "even as our troops continue to fight in Afghanistan, the tide of war is receding." What logically should have followed such an assertion was something about the surrender of an enemy and assurance that his defeat was so total and comprehensive that decades, if not centuries, will pass before he might again threaten the safety and security of the American people.

Obama could say nothing like that because no such surrender has been tendered, and it is clear to anybody with open eyes that the aggressors in the War on Terror are -- Osama bin Laden's death notwithstanding -- planning lethal new attacks on Americans here at home and American interests around the world. It is as though FDR had said in April 1943 that the tide of World War II was receding and therefore it was time to slash American defense spending because American pilots had shot down a plane carrying Japanese Adm. Isoroku Yamamoto, chief planner behind the attack on Pearl Harbor. No matter that Japanese troops still occupied half of the Pacific and would continue to wage war against the U.S.

Second, another Obama decision became public last week: The chief executive wants to give federal civil servants a half-percent pay raise. The absurdity of this proposal is clear in light of the excellent reporting of USA Today's Dennis Cauchon. In a series of stories in 2010 that drew emotional criticism from federal employee union leaders but no factual refutations, Cauchon used the government's own data to show that civil servants' compensation has far outstripped that of private-sector workers. "The compensation gap between federal and private workers has doubled in the past decade," Cauchon found. "Federal civil servants earned average pay and benefits of $123,049 in 2009, while private workers made $61,051 in total compensation, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. The data are the latest available." If anything, Obama should freeze federal pay indefinitely so private-sector employees can catch up with the bureaucrats.

To be sure, the proposed raise is so small as to be largely symbolic, but that's precisely the point: It carries a vital re-election year message from Obama to a key sector of his base constituency -- unionized public employees. It tells them Obama will take care of them, even as he paves the way for firing half a million men and women in uniform who likely are not among his re-election supporters. The hard-eyed conclusion here must be that winning re-election is more important to Obama than assuring American security at home and abroad.

Original article here.