‘It’s guns versus butter.’ And Trump backers are betting on the guns to prevail | McClatchy Washington Bureau

As the point man for House Democrats on defense issues, Washington state Rep. Adam Smith is trying to make sense of President-elect Donald Trump’s plans for the U.S. military.

So far, he’s not having much luck.

“I don’t think it’s intellectually possible to digest what he’s talking about, and I’m not just being a wise-ass here,” said Smith, the top-ranked Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee.

One thing is clear: If Trump gets his way on lifting the spending caps imposed on the U.S. military, Smith says there’s no doubt that it would be a boon for Joint Base Lewis-McChord (JBLM) and all of Washington state.

But he said there would be damaging tradeoffs, and he’s waiting for more specifics.

“It would cause an unsustainable increase in the national debt and deficit,” Smith said. “But in the short term, it would certainly be great for the military-industrial complex, and in the Puget Sound region, there’s a lot of businesses large and small that would benefit. And once you’ve gotten rid of the budget caps, the sky’s the limit basically.”

Lifting the caps alone would cost roughly $500 billion over 10 years, and it’s just part of Trump’s “peace through strength” plan that calls for a multibillion-dollar increase for more nuclear warheads, bombers and submarines.

And with Trump also proposing a huge tax cut and more spending on infrastructure projects, Smith says that none of it adds up. He said Trump’s military plan would only drive up the national debt and make it impossible for Congress to pay for any other discretionary spending.

“He has said many, many contradictory things, and how he’s going to sort those out remains to be seen,” Smith said.

Trump emphasized a military build-up throughout his campaign.

“I’m gonna build a military that’s gonna be much stronger than it is right now. It’s gonna be so strong, nobody’s gonna mess with us,” he said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” in October of last year.

Trump backers like what they’ve heard from the president-elect so far. They’re expecting him to prevail with the new Congress in removing the budget caps, known in Washington parlance as the “sequester.”

“It’s going to be all positive – the big battle is over the sequester,” said Republican state Rep. Dick Muri, a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel from Steilacoom, Washington, who worked at JBLM. “It’s guns versus butter: The Democrats want the butter and the Republicans want the guns. It’s a little bit of a standoff right now and I think that’s going to come to an end. I think the military sequester is out the window.”

He said he’ll be watching Trump’s military appointments: “I’m hoping that despite his lack of military experience – no more or more less than President Obama had – he’ll appoint good people.”

Smith, 51, has backed much of Obama’s military plans over the past eight years. He won his 11th term last week and was mentioned as a contender to succeed to Defense Secretary Ashton Carter, if former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had won the presidency.

Smith said Trump “ran the most bitter, divisive, and negative presidential campaign in history.”

He said he’s hoping that Trump changes his tone, adding: “If he continues to divide us as a nation, I will fight him every step of the way.”

November 10, 2016