Conservatives and Republicans beware.   The Democrats have just launched their final offensive for this election season.   It begins with a poll coducted by CNN which aims to put the spotlight on federal spending.   The poll finds Americans are, by overwhelming majority, of a single mind with respect to government.   Americans believe "government is not the answer to our problems -- government is the problem."   CNN points out that federal government "discretionary spending grew from $649 billion in fiscal year 2001 to $968 billion in fiscal year 2005, an increase of $319 billion" and "the size and cost of government have gone up in the past four years, when Republicans have had a grip on the House of Representatives, the Senate and the White House."   This is undeniable but does it create an accurate picture?

Discretionary spending is all spending over which our government has a say, subject to annual legislative appropriations.   There is no discretion regarding certain large entitlement amounts such as Social Security, Medicare, etc.   But overall discretionary spending has, in fact gone up under Bush.   The problem with analyzing Bush and the Republican Congress on this basis alone is overall "discretionary spending" includes military and homeland security.   if these two are removed from the budget or the definition of "discretionary spending," the amount Republicans are responsible for has dropped.   There is no denying that.

So what of this discretionary spending inflation, this big government, Bush and Republicans have caused?   Can we live without it?   Probably not, live, that is.   Much of this spending was made necessary not by some broad based conservative conspiracy to build up the military industrial complex.   It was thrust upon us by two events.

The first happening which has caused military spending to rise (at least when compared to 2001) is the Clinton Presidency.   That's right.   I'm going to bash Clinton, again.   But Clinton balanced the budget, didn't he?   Well, I'm not going to go over the smoke and mirrors thing but I will say that to the extent Clinton reduced governmental spending, much of the "fat" that was trimmed was military.   Just as Reagan was forced to address numerous problems created in the wake of Carter's Presidency, Bush was forced to make up a rob-Peter's-pension-to-pay-Paul-today approach.   Clinton didn't merely surgically remove fat from the military budget.   His knife cut out significant portions of muscle at the same time.   While you can agree or disagree with our military efforts in Afghanistan or Iraq, you have to admit that our military was left in a shambles by William Jefferson Clinton.   Our personnel was reduced.   Our equipment aged.   Our planning atrophied.

The second happening which caused so much of an increase in discretionary spending was homeland security needs in the wake of 9-11.   We were caught not merely with our pants down but rather in our birthday suits on 9-11.   So much needed to be done that it hasn't all even yet been identified.   As anyone who doesn't so much as own a suit can tell you, if you need to build a wardrobe from the ground up, it gets very expensive.   That's where we were in 2001 and there's plenty yet to do.

I'm not going to tell you that the Republicans or Bush are the men and women for the job of rebuilding our military or creating a decent homeland security apparatus.   But I will tell you this country cannot afford another Presidency like Carter's or Clinton's.   If we balance the budget on the backs of military, intelligence, and homeland security, we may just as well put a giant a ginat bullseye on our backs and tape a "kick-me" sign on our backs.   We should all use the government windfall from defunding military and security to build 50s era bomb shelters, take survivalist classes and arm ourselves to the teeth.

There are many things government cannot do for us.   They cannot provide us with a good living.   They cannot make us happy.   But defense is best left to the government and it has always been that way.   When Democrats begin arguing that Bush and Congress are spending like drunken sailors, respond back that you'd rather have a drunken sailor standing guard over you than a stoned pacifist.