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Dark money: the quixotic quest to clean up US campaign financing
Dark money: the quixotic quest to clean up US campaign financing The supreme court’s 2010 Citizens United decision opened the floodgates for special interests to pour money into elections. Could a constitutional amendment be the answer?It would, activists testify, restore the public’s waning trust in vital US institutions, curb the corrupting influence of big money in politics and give America’s ailing democracy a much-needed shot in the arm.It is also, they acknowledge, dead on arrival.Corporate sedition is more damaging to America than the Capitol attack | Robert ReichRead moreAn amendment to the US constitution was last week proposed by Congressman Adam Schiff to overturn a 2010 precedent set by the supreme court, known as Citizens United, which opened the floodgates for corporations and special interests to pour billions of dollars into election campaigns.Passing the amendment would, Schiff argues, enable Congress or individual states to propose reasonable limits on private campaign contributions and independent expenditures. “Let’s get dark money out of our democracy,” he tweeted. “And return power to the people.”Such a move has broad public support in America but little chance of getting through Congress itself. Amending the constitution requires support from a two-thirds majority in both the House of Representatives and Senate plus ratification by three-quarters of state legislatures.In today’s polarised America, where few Republicans have displayed an appetite for campaign finance reform, that remains a non-starter. Democrats including Schiff himself have made previous attempts at constitutional amendments and got nowhere. Citizens United appears to be here to stay.Its origins lie in a challenge to campaign finance rules by Citizens United, a conservative non-profit group, after the Federal Election Commission refused to allow it to broadcast a film criticising candidate Hillary Clinton too close to the Democratic presidential primaries.In one of the most controversial decisions in its history, the supreme court ruled 5-4 in Citizens United’s favor with Justice Anthony Kennedy writing that limiting “independent political spending” from corporations and other special interest groups violates the first amendment right to free speech.It opened the way for them to spend unlimited money on election campaigns. In the 12 years since, outside groups have spent more than $4.4bn in federal elections – almost $1bn of which was “dark money”, typically through non-profits that do not disclose their donors. The biggest contributors have included banks, the pharmaceutical industry and the National Rifle Association (NRA).“Citizens United has been a disaster for the American political system even beyond what we expected,” said Noah Bookbinder, president of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (Crew) “We knew it was bad when it happened but the amount of money going into the political system has exploded since that decision, including a massive expansion in third-party spending, particularly unaccountable dark money spending.”The supreme court’s majority opinion in 2010 had assumed that outside spending would be inherently transparent and free from corruption. It has been proven wrong, Bookbinder argues, as the money is funneled through non-profits or shell corporations that conceal its origins.“So much of that money comes from sources that are difficult or impossible to identify. The public doesn’t know who’s responsible for this money in American politics. It’s been catastrophic and it does need to be fixed.”This, campaigners say, has had a corrosive effect on democracy and explains why politicians who benefit from the money so often fail to tackle healthcare reform, gun control, the climate crisis and other urgent issues.Bookbinder added: “It certainly does give more power to powerful interests like the fossil fuel companies, the drug companies, the major banks and all the biggest money industries as well as individual billionaires who can put a great deal of money into the political system, often in ways that the public doesn’t know about but that elected officials do know about and feel beholden to.“That’s a real problem. When you see a lack of progress on issues like climate change, how much of that is due to the fact that so many elected officials are beholden to powerful figures connected to industries that don’t want progress?”This, in turn, feeds public frustration with Washington a place where nothing gets done except measures that favour the rich and powerful – a recipe for voters to turn to outsider candidates such as Donald Trump who promise to shake up the system and “drain the swamp”.Bookbinder said: “The other piece that is really dangerous is that the American people understand that there is so much money going into politics from very wealthy people and from industries and they feel like the democracy is not working for them.“It makes people lose their faith in democracy and become more willing potentially to either support leaders who don’t believe necessarily in democracy – we’ve seen that in recent years – or to be less concerned with defending the democracy from threats. That’s another way in which it can be kind of existential in the effect that it has.”Pacs (political action committees) raise and spend money for campaigns that support or attack political candidates or legislation. Pacs are allowed to donate directly to a candidate’s official campaign but subject to limits on what contributions they can give or receive.In the wake of Citizens United, however, a federal appeals court ruled that outside groups could accept unlimited contributions as long as they do not give directly to candidates. These Super Pacs are allowed to spend money to endorse or oppose candidates with adverts that are produced independently.But Karen Hobert Flynn, president of the democracy reform group Common Cause, said: “The reality since that decision shows that it is not necessarily independent – we see lots of coordination between candidates and Super Pacs – and it causes enormous damage to our imperfect democracy where wealthy mega-donors, corporations, special interest groups not only impact and influence elections but, once elected, lawmakers feel like they need to grant favours for those who funded their campaigns.”Super Pacs are obliged to disclose their donors but these can include non-profits which make the original source of the money hard to track. More than 2,000 Super Pacs operated in each of the last two election cycles.The negative consequences have been felt not only in Washington but at state level, added Flynn, whose long fight for campaign finance reform in Connecticut bore fruit in 2008. “It has created a huge amount of cynicism that Congress and state legislatures are corrupt because they benefit from outside groups spending money on their behalf and that people’s voices do not matter.“The money has also led to further polarisation, driving more extreme kinds of measures, particularly on the right where we’ve seen money supporting those who want to overturn a fair and free election. If you look at the top 10 Super Pacs and their outside spending so far just in 2022, you’ll see nine out of the top 10 Super Pacs are conservative or support Republican candidates. It isn’t like, ‘Hey, both sides do it and it’s equal and it’s not a problem.’”Super Pacs are not all-powerful. Jeb Bush enjoyed their backing to the tune of $100m in 2016 but was defeated for the Republican nomination by Donald Trump’s improvised insurgent campaign. Everyone from Trump to Bernie Sanders to Marjorie Taylor Greene has shown the potency of small donations.And Congress could still take action. Its recently proposed Freedom to Vote Act would have ensured that Super Pacs are truly independent and illuminated “dark money” by requiring any entity that spends more than $10,000 in an election to disclose all major donors.But the legislation stalled in the evenly divided Senate after Democrats Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema rejected efforts to reform a procedural rule known as the filibuster, which would have enabled their party to thwart Republican opposition. A dark money group had run a $1m ad campaign in Manchin’s home state of West Virginia to pressure him to keep the filibuster intact.For critics of Citizens United, it was back to the drawing board once more. Rio Tazewell, director of strategy at People for the American Way, said: “Unfortunately there are very limited options in terms of what can be done. The supreme court could decide to weigh in on another case and reverse itself; given the current makeup of the court for the foreseeable future, that does seem unlikely.”But Tazewell noted that 22 states and more than 830 municipal localities have passed resolutions supporting a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United. “There’s a lot of pressure building and coalition building that’s happening so that we can ultimately get the type of bipartisan support that we probably will need to pass an amendment,” he added.“Ultimately, I think the most realistic solution – and possible, perhaps not overnight – is for there to be somewhat of a sea change at the national level and a greater recognition that this is not and should not be a partisan issue.”TopicsUS political financingUS politicsUS CongressDemocratsRepublicansfeaturesReuse this content More
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Senate judiciary committee nears vote on Ketanji Brown Jackson
Senate judiciary committee nears vote on Ketanji Brown JacksonCommittee vote expected to be evenly split, 11-11, forcing Democrats to ‘discharge’ the nomination The Senate judiciary committee on Monday neared a vote on the historic nomination of Ketanji Brown Jackson, poised to be the first Black woman confirmed to the supreme court.Following days of interrogation and debate over Jackson’s qualifications, the committee vote was expected to be evenly split, 11-11. That would force Democrats to “discharge” the nomination, delaying but not denying confirmation.Before the vote could take place, the committee adjourned to await the arrival of its 22nd member, the California Democrat Alex Padilla, whose flight to Washington was delayed.A vote to discharge Jackson’s nomination was expected as early as Monday evening. That would set up hours of additional debate on the Senate floor.Democrats and the White House hope to confirm Jackson to the lifetime position on the court before Congress recesses for the Easter holiday on Friday. The 51-year-old was confirmed by the Senate to the US court of appeals for the DC circuit last year with the support of three Republicans.Ketanji Brown Jackson to receive rare Republican vote as Collins says yesRead moreOnly one of those Republicans, Susan Collins of Maine, has committed to voting for her again.Lindsey Graham of South Carolina has said he will not support Jackson’s nomination to the supreme court, calling her an “activist to the core”, outside the judicial mainstream.Lisa Murkowski of Alaska has not said how she intends to vote, but is seen as one of only two more Republicans, along with Mitt Romney of Utah, who might support Jackson.If confirmed, Jackson will replace the retiring liberal justice Stephen Breyer, for whom she clerked, and would make history as the first Black woman and only the sixth woman to sit on the court in more than 200 years. Her confirmation would, however, do nothing to change the ideological balance of a court on which conservatives outnumber liberals 6-3.In his opening remarks on Monday, Dick Durbin of Illinois, the committee’s Democratic chair, praised Jackson’s “impeccable qualifications” and said her experience as a public defender would bring a “missing perspective to the court”.“This committee’s action today in nothing less than making history,” Durbin said. “I’m honored to be a part of it. I will strongly and proudly support Judge Jackson’s nomination.”Durbin also lamented Republican hostility toward Jackson, accusing senators of leveraging “vile” and “discredited” attacks on her record and character.“She stayed calm and collected. She showed dignity, grace and poise,” Durbin said. “It is unfortunate that our hearing came to that, but if there is one positive to take away from these attacks, it is that the nation got to see the temperament of a good, strong person truly ready to serve on the highest court in the land.”Many Republicans used the hearing on Monday to rehash their attacks on Jackson, accusing her of handing down lenient sentences to child sex crime offenders when she was a federal trial court judge, a claim independent factcheckers have said is baseless and lacks context.During her hearings, Jackson forcefully defended her record, telling senators these were among the most traumatic and haunting cases she dealt with and that she did her “duty to hold the defendants accountable”.Republicans also sought to portray Jackson as “soft on crime”, a line of attack dismissed outright by the American Bar Association, which testified that she was strongly qualified for the position.Republicans on the committee appear uniformly opposed to Jackson’s nomination, starting with the ranking member, Chuck Grassley of Iowa, who announced he would not vote to confirm Jackson because “she and I have fundamental, different views on the role of judges and the role that they should play in our system of government”.On Monday, Graham again used his time to decry Democrats’ treatment of nominees named by Republican presidents.“If we were in charge, she would not have been before this committee,” Graham said.His point was that Republican control of the Senate would have forced Democrats to put forward a more “moderate” – in his view – nominee. But Democrats saw the comment as a plain-spoken acknowledgment of Republicans’ hardball tactics when it comes to the supreme court, after the GOP refused to let Barack Obama fill a vacancy in 2016 – an act without precedent.Cory Booker, a New Jersey Democrat, compared proceedings on Jackson’s nomination to Festivus, the holiday celebrated on the TV series, Seinfeld.“There’s been a lot of airing of grievances,” Booker said, adding: “I’ve heard things that are just ridiculous.”During more than 30 hours of hearings last month, Jackson pledged to be an independent justice who would decide cases from a “neutral position”. She defended her record while reflecting on her personal story as the daughter of public school teachers in the segregated south.As the 22-member panel convened on Monday, Joe Biden said Jackson would “bring extraordinary qualifications, deep experience and intellect, and a rigorous judicial record to the supreme court.“She deserves to be confirmed as the next justice.”TopicsKetanji Brown JacksonUS supreme courtUS SenateLaw (US)US politicsRepublicansDemocratsnewsReuse this content More
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Hillary Clinton urges Democrats to ‘do a better job’ of telling voters of successes
Hillary Clinton urges Democrats to ‘do a better job’ of telling voters of successesFormer New York senator and secretary of state believes Democrats are holding themselves back by constant introspection Hillary Clinton has called on Democrats “to do a better job” of selling themselves to America’s voters to avoid humiliation in this year’s midterm elections where Republicans are widely expected to perform strongly and likely grab control of Congress.The former Democratic presidential candidate was speaking frankly on NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday, saying she thought last summer’s chaotic US withdrawal from Afghanistan was harmful to Joe Biden. The US president’s approval ratings have slumped in recent weeks to the lowest level since he took office.“I don’t think it helped, that is obviously the case,” Clinton, the former New York senator and secretary of state, told host Chuck Todd when asked if she thought Biden’s political troubles started with Afghanistan.“But there are a lot of good accomplishments to be putting up on the board. And the Democrats in office and out need to be doing a better job of making the case.”“The best politics is doing the best job that you can do. And there’s a lot that Democrats can talk about in these upcoming midterms. We’ve got a great story to tell. And we need to get out there and do a better job of telling it.”Clinton believes that Democrats are holding themselves back by constant introspection, which she said was “always the chorus in Democratic party politics.”“Hand wringing is part of the Democratic DNA. That seems to be in style whether we’re in or out of power. We’re in power and there still is hand wringing going on,” she said.“But from my perspective, President Biden is doing a very good job… his handling of Ukraine, passing the American rescue package, the huge infrastructure package.“I’m not quite sure what the disconnect is between the accomplishments of the administration, and this Congress, and the understanding of what’s been done, and the impact it will have on the American public, and some of the polling and the ongoing hand wringing.”Clinton also had criticism for Republicans, whom she said were experiencing “an even greater disconnect” than her own party.Democrats, she said, need to be “standing up to the other side with their craziness and their calls for impunity and nuttiness that we hear coming from them. I don’t think the average American, frankly, wants to be governed by people who live in a totally different reality.”Todd questioned Clinton about Russian president Vladimir Putin, who was hostile towards her when she was Barack Obama’s secretary of state, and whose support for her 2016 presidential opponent Donald Trump, some believe, was partly fueled by his hatred for her.“We are seeing very clearly the threat that he poses, not just to Ukraine, as we can watch every night on our news, but really, to Europe, to democracy, and the global stability that we thought we were building in the last 20 years,” she said.“I would not allow Russia back into the organizations it has been a part of. There is a G20 event later in the year. I would not permit Russia to attend, and if they insisted on literally showing up I would hope there would be a significant, if not total, boycott.”TopicsHillary ClintonUS politicsDemocratsnewsReuse this content More
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Unpicking of Trump-era asylum curbs primes partisan powder keg
Unpicking of Trump-era asylum curbs primes partisan powder kegBiden administration belatedly reversed a hard-right assault but humanitarian concerns risk being swamped by politics As the Biden administration announced on Friday plans to end Covid-related restrictions for undocumented people arriving at the southern border, it guaranteed that irregular immigration will return as even more of a polarizing, point-scoring, policy debate.Biden ends Trump-era asylum curbs amid border-region Democrat backlash Read moreAnd as the US hurtles toward midterm elections, another prescient anniversary looms this week.April 6 marks four years since the Trump administration announced its “zero tolerance” policy, the mechanism through which it separated almost 4,000 children from their families in what was widely condemned as an inhumane deterrence effort. Since the practice ended a few months after it was rolled out amid outcry, border policy has lurched from one extreme strategy to another.From “Remain in Mexico”, which pushes asylum seekers back across the border while their cases are processed, to Title 42, the public health order that has allowed border officials to rapidly expel migrants due to the Covid-19 pandemic, before they could claim asylum.On Friday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced the policy will finally end on 23 May.It had been sanctioned by Donald Trump, amid lobbying from senior adviser Stephen Miller, but continued into the Biden era, with the majority of the 1.7 million expulsions under Title 42 occurring under the current president. Joe Biden only recently moved to exclude unaccompanied minors from the sweeping program.Child separation. Remain in Mexico. The use of Title 42. All separate policies born of the same administration and indicative of a profound, hard-right assault on the right to claim asylum in the US.“The end of the cruel and anti-immigrant policy of using Title 42 to expel vulnerable asylum seekers under public health provisions is long overdue,” said Allen Orr, president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association in a statement. “The thousands upon thousands of migrants, from babies to grandmothers, who were illegally expelled before being allowed to have a meaningful chance to claim protection under our laws merit an acknowledgment that the US got it wrong.”Before the announcement to end use of Title 42 was made by the Biden administration this week, the White House acknowledged that winding down the provisions would probably lead to an increase in arrivals at the southern border.“We are planning for multiple contingencies, and we have every expectation that when the CDC ultimately decides it’s appropriate to lift Title 42, there will be an influx of people to the border,” said the White House communications director, Kate Bedingfield, at a press briefing on Wednesday.The Department of Homeland Security has said it is preparing to manage as many as 18,000 encounters on the border a day and is preparing to surge staff to the region to assist with enforcement and detention.But, say advocates and lawyers operating in the region, such a rise in numbers is probably a direct consequence of the outgoing policy itself.They point to the fact that many of those expected arrivals will be from people seeking asylum who were previously barred from doing so over the past two years.“A post-Title 42 world at the border is simply a return to lawful processing under the asylum system that was set up by Congress decades ago,” said Shaw Drake, a staff attorney at the ACLU Texas, speaking to the Guardian shortly before the CDC announcement on Friday.“When you spend the first year or more of your administration expelling over a million people then you are setting yourself up for an increase in people arriving to the border once that policy is lifted,” Drake, who is based in El Paso, added. “Because … you expelled people who otherwise may have had protection claims that they need to continue in the US to protect themselves from ongoing persecution and danger.”Many of those expelled under the policy have returned to camps along the border where extortion, kidnapping and violence are routinely reported, according to lawyers.“In any given border city [in Mexico] there are thousands of migrants some of whom have been there for over a year, already returned under Title 42,” said immigration attorney Jodi Goodwin, who is based in Harlingen, Texas.She added: “I think the reality is that [Title 42] did nothing to help public health. There was still international movement into the US. I think it was a very thinly – veiled cover for racism, specifically targeted at Central Americans and Haitians.”Goodwin said she had recently spoken to one of her clients at a camp in the border city of Matamoros who informed her that her young daughter had recently been sexually assaulted there.“Where’s the justice? It’s not going to happen. And there are just … a lot of cases like that.”But the humanitarian consequences of Title 42 and policies such as Remain in Mexico, which Biden initially lifted but was reinstated by court order, along with the nuances around projected increases in crossings, appear to have already been lost in partisan rhetoric.As soon as the decision on Title 42 was announced on Friday, Republicans condemned the move, as the party gears up to force the issue as a wedge throughout the midterm election season.The Texas senator Ted Cruz argued the decision would “open the flood gates to more illegal crossings”. Florida Republican senator Rick Scott described it as an “unconscionable plan”.Centrist Democrats too, had begun publicly urging the president not to revoke the directive. On Friday, the West Virginia senator Joe Manchin described the announcement as a “frightening decision”. He described the Trump-era policy as “an essential tool in combatting the spread of Covid-19 and controlling the influx of migrants at our southern border”.Those on the ground, too, say there is, as yet, no clear guidance for how exactly the processing of asylum claims might change when the order is lifted.Last week, the Biden administration finalized plans to streamline the asylum application process, meaning applicants could have their claims of credible fear of returning to their countries of origin assessed by customs and border officials rather than immigration judges, due to chronic and growing backlogs in the immigration courts.US immigration courts struggle amid understaffing and backlog of casesRead moreBut a continued rise in border arrivals will require greater humanitarian assistance in the region too.“Humanitarian, on-the-ground NGOs have been preparing for this for two years,” said Karla Vargas, a senior attorney with the Texas Civil Rights project, “but whenever DHS talks about preparation [for a rise in border arrivals] there tends to be a focus on enforcement only. But there really does need to be more focus on the processing of these individuals.“Most of the folks who are waiting that we have spoken to are just regular people, wanting to ask for asylum. To access that right.”TopicsUS immigrationUS-Mexico borderBiden administrationUS politicsTrump administrationDemocratsRepublicansfeaturesReuse this content More
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Biden’s record defense budget draws progressive ire over spending priorities
Biden’s record defense budget draws progressive ire over spending prioritiesPresident’s $813bn proposal is a 4% increase for the Pentagon which already spends more than the next 11 countries combined When Joe Biden released his annual budget proposal last week, one number in particular jumped out to progressives: $813bn. That is how much Biden is calling to spend on national defense in the US in the coming fiscal year. If approved, that number would represent the largest defense budget that America has ever seen.US presidents’ budget proposals are generally considered to be reflections of their policy priorities rather than realistic estimates of final spending allocations. If Biden’s call for a 4% increase in defense spending was meant to signal his policy priorities, progressives wasted no time in telling the president that his priorities are backwards.The US should cut the Pentagon budget to fund social | Emma Claire FoleyRead moreProgressive lawmakers have fiercely criticized the proposed defense budget, arguing that the US already spends far too much on its military and needs to invest more in domestic programs. But the war in Ukraine has complicated progressives’ arguments and given Republicans an opening to demand even more money for the military.Just hours after the White House announced its budget proposal on Monday, leaders of the Congressional Progressive Caucus released a statement attacking Biden’s plan to increase defense spending and opening up a familiar split in the party.“It is simply unacceptable that after the conclusion of our longest war and during a period of Democratic control of both chambers of Congress, the president is proposing record high military spending,” said the CPC chair, Pramila Jayapal, and former chairs Mark Pocan and Barbara Lee.“Appropriators and advocates are constantly called to answer for how we will afford spending on lowering costs and expanding access to healthcare, housing, childcare services, on fighting the Covid-19 pandemic, and on combating climate change – but such concerns evaporate when it comes to the Pentagon’s endlessly growing, unaudited budget.”We do not need to raise the defense budget by another $31 billion. It’s time to make investments into our communities — not into a defense budget that is already larger than the next 11 countries combined. pic.twitter.com/2nUpMpNt6E— Rep. Pramila Jayapal (@RepJayapal) March 28, 2022
Bernie Sanders, who chairs the Senate budget committee, echoed the CPC’s concerns, saying on Monday, “At a time when we are already spending more on the military than the next 11 countries combined, no we do not need a massive increase in the defense budget.”So far, the White House has stood by its request, insisting the increased funding will allow the US to better defend its international interests and assist Ukraine’s battle against Russia’s military assault.“As I have said many times, we need resources matched to strategy, strategy matched to policy and policy matched to the will of the American people,” the defense secretary, Lloyd Austin, said. “This budget gives us the resources we need to deliver on that promise.”And even as progressives urge Biden to curb funding for the military, the president is simultaneously facing criticism from the right for not proposing an even higher defense spending hike in response to the war in Ukraine.“The world is a dangerous place and growing more dangerous by the day,” the Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, said on Monday. “Amid all this, the White House has proposed no meaningful increase in resources for protecting innocent Americans, promoting our interests, supporting our partners, assisting Ukraine, or replenishing our stockpiles.”Progressives have pushed for years to lower US defense spending, but the devastation in Ukraine has added a new challenge to their efforts. Polling indicates that a majority of Americans believe Biden has not been tough enough in his response to Russia’s aggression, which has added fuel to Republicans’ demands for more military funding.But progressives are not abandoning their campaign, instead arguing that the Russian invasion of Ukraine demonstrates how US military dollars would be better spent elsewhere.“I think it’s a political challenge, but it’s not an actual budgetary challenge. This increase in money is not about Ukraine. This is about spending more on the US military-industrial complex,” said Robert Weissman, president of the progressive group Public Citizen. “The United States already spends more than 10 times what Russia does on its military. And that expenditure, obviously, didn’t deter Russia from invading Ukraine.”Even as Republicans point to the war in Ukraine to advocate for more defense spending, it is worth remembering that most of Biden’s budget proposal was crafted before the Russian invasion.Dr Travis Sharp, budget studies director at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, said the requested funding increase is more a reflection of how record-high US inflation has affected government agencies’ finances rather than the impact of the crisis in Ukraine.“Providing a higher level of defense spending does help to correct for some of the decreasing buying power as a result of inflation,” Sharp said. “If you didn’t provide a higher level of defense spending, then you would be trying to support the same-sized military with less money, so that would force you to make some hard trade-offs.”However, progressives reject inflation-based arguments for increasing the Pentagon’s budget, saying the Pentagon has consistently failed to account for how it spends its funds and should not be trusted with even more money.“An agency that can’t pass an audit needs to do a little bit more homework before we can be honest about what the impacts of inflation are,” said Stephen Miles, president of the progressive group Win Without War. He added, “Republicans don’t seem particularly concerned about the impacts of inflation on any other part of the budget, besides the military.”As the number of US coronavirus deaths nears 1 million and the world faces the grim realities of climate change, it was “unconscionable” to demand more funding for the military, Miles said.“The threats we face in the 21st century are primarily not going to be solved by spending more money at the Pentagon,” he told the Guardian.For Sharp, the Pentagon’s significant budget is a reflection of America’s military commitments around the world and its strategy to maintain strong alliances with key foreign partners. He suggested that, in order for progressives to be successful in their push to lower defense spending, they need to make a pitch for a new kind of American foreign policy.“If you really want to reduce the size of US defense spending, then you need to go after the strategy,” Sharp said. “If you pare back the strategy, reduce the operational tempo, then the dollars will decline proportionately.”TopicsUS militaryBiden administrationUS politicsDemocratsanalysisReuse this content More
