Vice President Biden gave an emotional speech to a group fo “Gold Star Families” on Friday, those who have lost a loved one in the military, at an event commemorating Memorial Day in Washington, D.C. The vice president told attendees about the death of his wife and daughter when he was 29 years old and tried to assure those who have lost a family member in war that the memory of their loved one will one day bring “a smile to your lips before it brings a tear to your eye”:

BIDEN: Looking at your kids, most you have kids here, and it was the first time in my career, my life, I realized someone could go out and I probably shouldn’t say this with the press here — but it’s more important, you’re more important.

For the first time in my life I understood how someone could consciously decide to commit suicide. Not because they were deranged, not because they were nuts, because they had been to the top of the mountain and they just knew in their heart, they never get there again, that there was never going to get — there never going to be that way ever again. That’s how an awful lot you have feel.

There will come a day, I promise you, and you parents as well, when the thought of your son or daughter or your husband or wife brings a smile to your lips before it brings a tear to your eye. It will happen. [...]

So, hang onto each other. Hang onto each other. And I can’t tell you, I can’t tell you how deeply the five of us on this stage feel about the sacrifices you’ve made for this country. That doesn’t — that doesn’t fill the black hole. You should know only 1 percent of you have fought these wars and much less thank God than 1 percent of those that fought the wars are going through what you’re going through.

We owe you more than we can ever, ever repay you. As I said, my prayer is that that smile will come sooner than later, but I promise you it will come. God bless you all and my God protect our troops. Thank you.

MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow aired a clip of Biden’s speech:

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Campaigning on behalf of presumptive GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney, Bush administration U.N. ambassador John Bolton told the crowd at a fundraiser (PDF) for the Polk County Republicans of Iowa that the U.S. should focus on military spending at the expense of domestic spending on issues like health care.

In Iowa, the typically über-hawkish Fox News commentator pleaded with event attendees to support Romney even though he “may not have been your perfect candidate,” and later told the crowd:

A dollar well spent on American defense is a lot different than a dollar spent with the Department of Health and Human Services. It’s qualitatively different.

Romney is trying to base his campaign for president on his (dubious) record as a job creator (at the expense of all other issues, including Bolton’s forté, foreign policy).

But Bolton’s idea won’t help Romney’s campaign theme. He’s right: Military spending is “qualitatively different,” but not quite in the way that Bolton means. According to a University of Massachusetts, Amherst, study, military spending creates fewer jobs than other government spending. Here’s a chart published in the study:

So actually, a dollor spent on the military is “different”: it’s less valuable in terms of job creation than spending on government programs such as those administered precisely by the Department of Health and Human Services. This, however, will probably be news to Mitt Romney and his generously-spending militaristic advisers. What shouldn’t be news to the Romney campaign however, is Bolton’s push to rob social security and health care spending to give more money to the military.

Rasmussen has a new poll out today finding that a slim majority of American “likely voters” think the United States should withdrawal all American troops from Europe:

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that 51% of Likely U.S. Voters now believe the United States should remove all its troops from Western Europe and let the Europeans defend themselves. Only 29% disagree, but another 20% are undecided.

Part of President Obama’s plan to cut nearly $500 billion in military spending over the next decade (DOD’s budget will still grow over that same period) includes cutting two Army brigades in Europe.

Back in February, CAP’s Lawrence Korb, Alex Rothman and Max Hoffman praised the Obama plan to scale back from Europe, adding that there is “no reason” to maintain such a large American presence there:

[T]he Obama administration’s plan to remove two brigades from Europe will focus U.S. military resources where they are most needed. There is no reason for the United States to continue stationing 70,000 troops on a stable continent that has more than enough resources to provide for its own defense.

The CAP report notes that the 2010 Sustainable Defense Task Force found the United States can reduce its troop presence in Europe and Asia by one-third without harming American security or interests.” Moreover, “withdrawing 33,000 troops from Europe and 17,000 from Asia — far more than Panetta’s proposed withdrawal of two brigades — would enable savings $80 billion over the next decade.”

In a new op-ed in the Chicago Tribune ahead of the NATO meetings today in the Second City, Mitt Romney attacked President Obama, claiming he hasn’t showed sufficient American leadership in the Atlantic Alliance because of the administration’s cuts in military spending:

Last year, President Obama signed into law a budget scheme that threatens to saddle the U.S. military with nearly $1 trillion in cuts over the next 10 years. President Obama’s own defense secretary, Leon Panetta, has called cuts of this magnitude “devastating” to our national security. Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has plainly said that such a reduction means “we would not any longer be a global power.” Despite these warnings, the Obama administration has pledged to veto an attempt to replace these cuts with savings in other areas. [...]

With the United States on a path to a hollow military, we are hardly in a position to exercise leadership in persuading our allies to spend more on security. And in fact the Obama administration has failed to exercise such leadership. Quite the contrary; a multiplier effect has set in: The administration’s irresponsible defense cuts are clearing the way for our partners to do even less.

There’s one major flaw in Romney’s argument: Obama alone is not responsible for the $1 trillion in military spending reductions over the next decade. The Obama administration did usher in nearly $500 billion in cuts over the next decade, but those cuts — contrary to Romney’s suggestion — have “real buy in” from the military’s top brass, as Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey said. Panetta supports the cuts too, saying the U.S. will still have “the capability to confront and defeat more than one adversary at a time.”

Congress, however, is responsible for the other $500 billion in military spending cuts as a result of the bipartisan debt deal that Obama signed into law. Those reductions are set to take place because of the sequester the deal put in place should lawmakers fail to agree on how to find savings elsewhere (House Republicans want to cut much needed programs for the nation’s poorest to offset the military spending cuts).

Indeed, as the Washington Post noted, “Romney’s statement fails to note that the sequester was part of a deal negotiated by the White House and leaders of both parties, a sweeping proposal that was approved by nearly three-quarters of the House Republican conference and six in 10 Senate Republicans.”

But on the substance, Romney is also wrong to claim that the U.S. military can’t withstand $1 trillion in cuts over the next decade. As CAP defense budget expert Lawrence Korb noted, “[t]his would, in real terms, allow the Pentagon to spend at its 2007 levels.”