Editor’s Note: From our great friend Lt. Gen. Tom McInerney , U.S. Air Force (ret), one of our regular SUA contributors, and Erin Cassidy of Yottastor, LLC., as well as our good friends at The Washington Times.
How to rebuild U.S. military might
Only a Trump economy could fund the lacking defenses
By Tom McInerney and Erin Cassidy – – Monday, August 29, 2016
ANALYSIS/OPINION:
In order to rebuild the U.S. military the next president is going to have to do the following things with the economy. The next administration must design a growth plan that will allow the U.S. economy to expand at a 3 percent to 6 percent rate per year. Only Donald Trump’s plan has the opportunity to do this. It can be accomplished by the following these important actions:
- We must become energy independent within three years, and that should include Mexico and Canada. Energy independence creates the economic environment that can grow millions of jobs over the four-year period. A President Trump will take the handcuffs off our energy resources.
- Obamacare must be terminated immediately as it has already become a sinkhole for federal funds and increased costs of medical care in the country.
- The nearly $2 trillion that U.S. corporations hold in overseas banks should be granted a one-year tax holiday if they bring them back and invest in U.S. companies with modernized plants and production. This fiscal stimulus will have a huge job creation effect and the 93 million Americans without full-time jobs will be back in the work force again.
- The corporate income tax should be reduced from 35 percent to 15 percent. Not only will this stimulate jobs by U.S. corporations, it will also enable them to keep their plants in the United States as well as bring back others from China, Thailand and Mexico. In addition, a favorable tax structure will encourage foreign corporations to relocate to the U.S. This is an important addition that people have not fully understood. Those who say that cutting the corporate tax rewards the wealthy do not understand the job creation impact it will have. A fully employed American work force will give a substantial increase to U.S. tax revenues as demonstrated during the Kennedy and Reagan administrations.
- We must eliminate the huge number of regulations the Obama administration published during the last eight years. Today this burden costs the United States $108 billion annually in inefficiencies. This is just not acceptable and it is one of the major reasons why the administration has had one of the lowest growth rates in our history. Growth and wealth creation must be our objective.
- Individual tax rates must be lowered. The economy will expand when people can keep what they earn and invest it in homes, education and other areas that increase our growth rates. American workers need a tax break — not a tax increase.
- We have both worked in the U.S. industrial base and know that it must be rebuilt. During the past eight years the U.S. industrial base being downsized to where we are at the critical point of survival. The industrial base is what enabled us to win World War II and it sustained us through the Cold War in defeating the Soviet Union, with a deterrent strategy that was well funded but affordable for the nation. Leading-edge technologies from the industrial base were instrumental. Today we are faced with adversaries like China, which is building F-22 and F-35 equivalent jet fighters. They have taken our blueprints through cyberwarfare and cut the lag time from 15 years to two to four years. We cannot tolerate this in the future. It is no longer an insider threat or espionage problem. Chinese Unit 61398 is doing this in the Pudong District of Shanghai while we slumber.
In summary, only Donald Trump’s economic plan will enable us to grow sufficiently rebuild our military. We cannot throw dollars at the Pentagon like the Reagan administration did when the gross domestic product (GDP) reached 7 percent. Now we have almost a $20 trillion debt given to us by President Obama. It will take initially 4 percent GDP, growing to 5 percent to rebuild the structures that all of the services need. The American public does not realize that this administration and Congress have unilaterally disarmed us such that we cannot handle any major regional contingency in our current state. The in-commission rates on our aircraft are down to 50 percent or lower on average. We have been fighting radical Islam for 15 years and, unfortunately, we’re losing. During the past eight years, Fort Hood, Chattanooga, San Bernardino and Orlando have all been attacks directed by radical Islamists.
We have let them declare a caliphate in Syria and Iraq that is spreading to 28 nations. Russia has seized Crimea and parts of Eastern Ukraine. China has expanded island airfields into the South China Sea. All these action are unacceptable.
We must rebuild our military now and the Trump economic plan is the only one that can do it.
- Tom McInerney, a retired U.S. Air Force lieutenant general, is a former Air Force assistant vice chief of staff. Erin Cassidy is chief of staff and vice president of communications for Yottastor LLC.
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