General Mattis, Secretary of Defense, is proving to be quite conventional, Lawfare reports:
The White House said on Monday that President Trump will propose a $54 billion increase in military spending, to be financed primarily by cuts in the budgets of other agencies, including the State Department. White House officials said that “foreign aid” will face a significant decrease. Secretary of State Tillerson should strongly and publicly resist cuts to the State Department budget. As the press has reported, Defense Secretary Mattis supported full funding for the State Department when he was in uniform, and it is even more important that he do so now.
In 2013, when he was CENTCOM Commander, Mattis said “If you don’t fund the State Department fully, then I need to buy more ammunition ultimately. So I think it’s a cost benefit ratio. The more that we put into the State Department’s diplomacy, hopefully the less we have to put into a military budget as we deal with the outcome of an apparent American withdrawal from the international scene.”
Based on reports of top White House aide Bannon wanting to destroy the administrative state, this must be a little annoying. After all, you don’t want your foreign enemies clambering over the walls while you’re busy eviscerating your domestic enemies for good, so you increase defense funding, while removing funding for all those other agencies you dislike.
That might get in the way when you try to implement your white nationalist policies.
Mattis remains a reassuring pick.
