Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC) took to the Senate floor today and denigrated what he sees as a government addiction to spending, calling Obama “the addict-in-chief.” But what DeMint and other GOP lawmakers continue to ignore in their lambasts of over-spending is that the U.S. budget shortfall owes to the Bush-era tax cuts, the economic downturn, and war and defense spending rather than to any sort of “addiction” to discretionary spending.

In fact, the Senate Appropriations Committee has recently released data demonstrating that the Obama administration is spending the same amount per person each year in domestic discretionary spending, that is on health care, education, and other social services, as the Bush administration spent during its first year in 2001:

“Although non-defense discretionary spending in nominal dollars has increased, when taking inflation and population growth into account the amount contained in the [2011 budget] represents no increase over what we spent in 2001, a year in which we generated a surplus of $128 billion,” said chairman Daniel Inouye (D-HI) in a prepared statement. “So the right question to ask is: Are we really spending too much on non-defense programs? The answer is clearly no.”

The amounts of federal funds dedicated to the defense budget and to entitlement programs have grown over the past decade while tax revenues have fallen sharply. But as TPM notes, military spending is special case because, unlike with entitlement programs, there is no population growth to consider:

The idea here is that since this money is largely devoted to education, health care, and other services that benefit broad swaths of the population, the amount of it should grow roughly with population size. This stands in contrast to defense spending, which is why the committee did not correct defense spending for population growth.

And TPM also charts the numbers:

The Department of Defense’s baseline budget has nearly doubled in the past ten years and “is now higher in real terms than what we spent on average during the Cold War when we were faced with an existential threat from another superpower.” Two wars, a budget bill loaded with defense earmarks, and contractor price-gouging has all added to the total costs. The United States now spends more money on defense than it has since its full-on engagement during World War II.

If GOP lawmakers are serious about brokering a deal to lower the deficit as a part of the debt-ceiling controversy, they will have to open the door to cuts to the Department of Defense’s budget. With the July 22 deadline approaching fast, the GOP doesn’t have much time to change its tune.

–Sarah Bufkin

Jeffrey Goldberg and Dan Meridor

Jeffrey Goldberg, writing for Bloomberg on July 4, describes Dagan as a “bungling strategist” and, through some impressive logical jujitsu, concludes:

If Israel does attack the Iranian nuclear program, it will in part be because Dagan undermined his country’s deterrent credibility.

While Israel’s deterrent credibility is a matter for debate — though deterrence theory suggests that Israel’s presumed second strike nuclear capability should be enough to deter any Iranian nuclear attack on Israel — Dagan’s remarks should undermine Goldberg’s previous reporting on Israel and Iran. Last year, Goldberg, after speaking with 40 current and past Israeli decision makers, observed, “there is a better than 50-percent chance that Israel will launch a strike by next July.” Neither his characterization of a consensus nor his prediction of a military strike have turned out to be accurate.

But Goldberg isn’t the only one hitting back at Dagan. Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Dan Meridor has been making the rounds discussing the Iranian threat and calling for tougher sanctions. ThinkProgress asked Meridor about Dagan’s comments in an Israel Policy Forum conference call today. He responded:

I know Dagan well. I dont’ think he’s against Israeli policy and [he] has a lot we need to thank him for. Whether he should have spoken out after leaving office is a good question of taste. I don’t want to get into that.

And in a France 24 interview from last week, Meridor hinted at the possibility of a military strike while implicity criticizing those who have spoken out against the “military option.”

He said:

I don’t think that in good families one speaks of military action. [It's] something that we don’t speak of. But I think that Americans usually say that “all options are on the table.” Leave it at that.

Watch his remarks here:

Goldberg and Meridor are clearly invested in maintaining the possibility of an Israeli military strike against Iran. But while they prefer to portray Dagan as the only outlier within Israel’s decision making elite, the reality is that a majority of living ex-Mossad chiefs are taking sides against the Netanyahu government’s position on Iran and/or the government’s intransigence on settlements and land swaps required for a two state solution. Goldberg and Meridor continue to cling to their hawkish positions even while an Israeli “consensus” favoring Netanyahu’s hawkish policies seems increasingly in doubt.

For the past few months, various Obama administration officials have said publicly that the United States would be willing to keep an unspecified number of U.S. troops in Iraq after the Dec. 31, 2011 withdrawal date if the Iraqis asked. Just last weekend, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq again extended the offer, one that some analysts credit with increased attacks on American soldiers there.

However, the White House has been silent. The AP reports today however that “senior Obama administration and U.S. military officials” say the “the White House is offering to keep up to 10,000 troops in Iraq next year”:

Already, though, the White House has worked out options to keep between 8,500 and 10,000 active-duty troops to continue training Iraqi security forces during 2012, according to senior Obama administration and U.S. military officials in interviews with The Associated Press. The figures also were noted by foreign diplomats in Baghdad briefed on the issue.

The AP added that “White House national security spokesman Tommy Vietor said there currently are ‘no plans’ to keep U.S. troops in Iraq” past 2011. But Vietor added that an Iraqi request “would be given serious consideration.”

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) scoffed at the idea of keeping more troops in Iraq past the withdrawal deadline.

“As Iraq becomes increasingly capable, it is time for our own troops to return home by the end of the year and for these precious resources to be directed elsewhere,” Reid, Democrat of Nevada, said in the statement. “There is no question that the United States must continue to provide support for the Iraqis as they progress, but now is the time for our military mission to come to a close.”

Last June marked the deadliest month for U.S. forces in Iraq since 2008, and the rate of U.S. troops in killed there is at 2003 and 2004 levels.

During a town hall meeting in New Hampshire this morning, GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney launched into a rambling and confusing attack on President Obama over his handling of U.S. involvement in U.N.-authorized NATO’s air campaign in Libya. In one of his first points, Romney said he hoped the president warned Qaddafi before NATO began enforcing the no-fly zone there last March:

ROMNEY: The President had three choices in Libya. The first choice, I hope he took, I don’t know that this has come out but … Before we carried out any kinetic military activity I hope we contacted Qaddafi and said, “Mr. Qaddafi, if you attack your people, if you put any aircraft in the air and you attack your own people, we’ll come shoot them down, we’ll take out your aircraft defense sites and you’ll see the full weight of the United Sates of America at your doorstep and over your country. We’ll put in place a no fly zone.”

Watch it:

This is exactly what Obama did in a speech just after the U.N. authorized military action against Qaddafi:

Yesterday, in response to a call for action by the Libyan people and the Arab League, the U.N. Security Council passed a strong resolution that demands an end to the violence against citizens. It authorizes the use of force with an explicit commitment to pursue all necessary measures to stop the killing, to include the enforcement of a no-fly zone over Libya. [...]

Now, once more, Moammar Qaddafi has a choice. The resolution that passed lays out very clear conditions that must be met. The United States, the United Kingdom, France, and Arab states agree that a cease-fire must be implemented immediately. That means all attacks against civilians must stop. Qaddafi must stop his troops from advancing on Benghazi, pull them back from Ajdabiya, Misrata, and Zawiya, and establish water, electricity and gas supplies to all areas. Humanitarian assistance must be allowed to reach the people of Libya.

It’s unlikely President Obama “contacted” Qaddafi personally to make this warning. This is why the United States, and every country around the world, has diplomats. But assuming that Qaddifi has access to television and/or the internet, it’s probably fair to say that he got the president’s warning. Perhaps Romney just wasn’t paying attention at the time.