Earlier this year, Sens. David Vitter (R-LA) and Rand Paul (R-KY) introduced a resolution that would amend the Constitution to eliminate the guarantee that all persons born in the U.S. are automatically citizens. “Citizenship is a privilege, and only those who respect our immigration laws should be allowed to enjoy its benefits,” said Paul in a press release at the time. Meanwhile, in the House of Representatives and in conservative state legislatures across the country, right-wing lawmakers have been introducing legislation that would simply reinterpret the 14th amendment’s citizenship provision to prevent the U.S.-born children of undocumented immigrants from obtaining citizenship.

Vitter and Paul similarly argued that neither the language nor the intent of the 14th amendment were meant to confer “birthright citizenship to the children of illegal aliens.” Yet the fact that their initial proposal involved actually going through the trouble of modifying the Constitution signaled quite the opposite. This week, the two senators addressed the legislative dissonance by introducing a bill that’s essentially a carbon copy of Rep. Steve King’s (R-IA) birthright citizenship proposal in the House. Vitter and Paul, along with Sens. Mike Lee (R-UT) and Jerry Moran (R-KS), say their legislation “requires the federal government to limit automatic citizenship to children born to at least one parent who is a citizen, legal resident, or member of the military.”

Yet, rather than seeking two thirds of Congress and three-fourths of all the states to amend the Constitution, they now simply seek to redefine it by amending the Immigration and Nationality Act. It seems unlikely that Vitter and Paul’s bill will get the 60 votes it needs to get passed — at least in the current Congress. Even if it did, the whole premise that the “subject to the jurisdication thereof” language of the 14th amendment doesn’t apply to undocumented immigrants is pretty bogus in light of judicial precedent. The 14th amendment is relatively explicit about the fact that “[a]ll persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof” are in fact “citizens of the United States.” The Supreme Court, at various times, has ruled that “the Fourteenth Amendment extends to anyone, citizen or stranger, who is subject to the laws of a State, and reaches into every corner of a State’s territory. That a person’s initial entry into a State, or into the United States, was unlawful, and that he may for that reason be expelled, cannot negate the simple fact of his presence within the State’s territorial perimeter.” (Plyler v. Doe)

Since it’s highly unlikely their proposal will get very far, it raises the question of what Vitter and Paul’s goals really are. It’s one thing to argue in favor of a constitutional amendment. The arguments behind it are still beyond questionable, but at least they are based on a general agreement that the 14th amendment has been rightly interpreted throughout the past century. When people start arguing that the Constitution has been misread for over 150 years, it undercuts the legitimacy of the millions of Latino and Asian citizens who at some point in their family tree had citizenship conferred to them through an immigrant family member who came to the U.S. during periods when most foreign residents lacked formal “legal” status. Given the fact that Vitter and Paul waged two of the most blatantly racist campaigns last year, I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s exactly what they’re trying to accomplish.

Since their catastrophic losses in 2008, Republicans have been trying to re-claim the mantle of fiscal responsibility and successfully rode a wave of spending discontent to win control of the House the 2010 midterms. During that time, many Republicans repeatedly said that America’s bloated defense budget must be included in federal government spending cuts. In January, Rep. John Campbell (R-CA) endorsed Defense Secretary Robert Gates’s modest proposal for Pentagon spending reductions but added that DOD should take “huge steps” beyond what Gates laid out. Another Republican, Rep. Kevin Brady (TX), recently proposed reducing Pentagon procurement by 15 percent.

Yet Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-WI) budget he announced yesterday all but ignored calls from many in his party to rein in DOD spending. “The nation’s fiscal trajectory is simply not sustainable,” Ryan said yesterday, adding, “We need real leadership and that is what we intend to provide.” How did Ryan display this “leadership”? His plan not only slashes Medicare and Medicaid and eliminates President Obama’s new health care reform law, but it also cuts taxes for the wealthiest Americans while most likely raising them for middle class Americans. And despite the fact that Ryan himself had previously called for Pentagon spending reductions, what did his budget proposal leave untouched? Defense spending, as Bloomberg reports:

The U.S. House Republican 2012 budget proposal represents the ceiling for talks on national security spending next year even as it leaves the Obama administration’s original $671 billion request intact, analysts and lawmakers said. [...]

As part of his 2012 blueprint, Ryan accepted Defense Secretary Robert Gates’s proposal to yield $178 billion in savings over the next five years. Out of that amount, $100 billion would be spent elsewhere in the military and $78 billion would be applied to deficit reduction.

Ryan even said as much yesterday announcing his plan. “We think that Secretary Gates has done a good job of going through the Pentagon budget and looking for a bunch of waste and a lot of inefficiencies. So our budget reflects those policies,” he said.

Sounds good right? Well not exactly. Gates’s cuts will result only in a decline in the rate of growth in the Pentagon’s budget, not in absolute dollars. As CAP’s Larry Korb and Laura Conley pointed out, Gates’s plan “only slows down the rise of projected spending, rather than producing a much-needed reduction in the budget topline.” “There’s a lot more to the story,” Korb and Conley wrote:

First of all, the cuts might prove illusory. The federal government appropriates money one year at a time, and the vast majority of that $78 billion reduction would take place in 2014 and 2015, when there will be a new Secretary of Defense and possibly a new president.

In fact, Obama’s expected 2012 request of $553 billion would be 5% higher than what the Defense Department plans to spend this year. In inflation-adjusted dollars, this figure is higher than at any time during the Bush years or during the Cold War.

The reality is that Gates’s proposal is mostly smoke and mirrors, and Ryan and the GOP either seem to have bought it hook, line and sinker or they just don’t care. As Korb noted in a Politico op-ed, Gates’s plan would mean that over the next 4 years, the Pentagon will spend “almost 20 percent more than it did during the Bush years.”

So while Ryan is busy cutting much needed entitlements and giving tax breaks to the wealthiest Americans, he leaves the bulging defense budget virtually untouched. But if Ryan and the GOP ever get serious about really cutting federal spending with significant reductions in defense spending, here are a couple proposals.

The White House, Senate Democrats, and congressional Republicans are currently locked in intense negotiations, trying to find agreement on a plan to fund the government and avoid a shutdown. Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said this week that the Pentagon would still be able “to continue to protect our vital interests around the world, to continue to safeguard the nation’s security, to wage the wars we’re fighting and the operations that we are conducting right now.” However, while U.S. troops will remain engaged in those overseas operations, they won’t get paid for it, the AP reports:

U.S. military troops at war in Iraq and Afghanistan would receive one-week’s pay instead of two in their next paycheck if the government shuts down this weekend due to the federal budget impasse, according to a senior defense official.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss personnel issues, said the military can’t be paid during a funding lapse until a new appropriations bill or continuing resolution is passed by Congress.

If the funding bill expires on April 8, it will be in the middle of the military’s two-week pay period, so Pentagon would send out paychecks for just the first week of the pay period, said the official.

As the Cable’s Josh Rogin reports, after that initial one-week’s worth paycheck, “all uniformed military personnel would continue to work but would stop receiving paychecks.”

If the federal government shuts down, “you could have forces deployed in the field, with their families back home, and no one’s getting paid. And that could be an issue,” the defense official said.

Last week, Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) introduced a bill that would allow troops to continue to receive pay if the government shuts down. “When we heard that the military was concerned about whether or not they would get paid on time, then we rushed through and we got this bill done,” Gohmert said.

The White House, Senate Democrats, and congressional Republicans are currently locked in intense negotiations, trying to find agreement on a plan to fund the government and avoid a shutdown. Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said this week that the Pentagon would still be able “to continue to protect our vital interests around the world, to continue to safeguard the nation’s security, to wage the wars we’re fighting and the operations that we are conducting right now.” However, while U.S. troops will remain engaged in those overseas operations, they won’t get paid for it, the AP reports:

U.S. military troops at war in Iraq and Afghanistan would receive one-week’s pay instead of two in their next paycheck if the government shuts down this weekend due to the federal budget impasse, according to a senior defense official.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss personnel issues, said the military can’t be paid during a funding lapse until a new appropriations bill or continuing resolution is passed by Congress.

If the funding bill expires on April 8, it will be in the middle of the military’s two-week pay period, so Pentagon would send out paychecks for just the first week of the pay period, said the official.

As the Cable’s Josh Rogin reports, after that initial one-week’s worth paycheck, “all uniformed military personnel would continue to work but would stop receiving paychecks.”

If the federal government shuts down, “you could have forces deployed in the field, with their families back home, and no one’s getting paid. And that could be an issue,” the defense official said.

Last week, Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) introduced a bill that would allow troops to continue to receive pay if the government shuts down. “When we heard that the military was concerned about whether or not they would get paid on time, then we rushed through and we got this bill done,” Gohmert said.