Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
San Francisco Chronicle
February 10, 2007
Pg. C1
Group of business leaders targets military spending in federal budget
By Carolyn Said, Chronicle Staff Writer
What qualifies folksy businessman Ben Cohen, the man who gave the world Wavy Gravy ice cream, to critique the $2.9 trillion federal budget unveiled on Monday?
And not just to repeat liberal platitudes about less money for defense and more for social welfare, but to cite chapter and verse on F/A-22 Raptor fighter jets and DD(X) destroyers that should be axed, slashing $60 billion from basic military spending?
Cohen is president of a group called Business Leaders for Sensible Priorities, which he founded in 1998. The bipartisan organization now numbers about 700 members, including Ted Turner and Paul Newman, plus an advisory roster of retired top military officials. About 80 Bay Area businesspeople are in the group, including the new chairman, San Francisco investor Warren Langley, the former president of the Pacific Exchange stock and options market.
Cohen and Langley ask, Who is more financially astute and better qualified than a corporate chief executive to comment on budget matters?
"Businesspeople are presumed to have credibility in dealing with huge amounts of money and difficult budgetary trade-offs," said Cohen, the co-founder of Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream.
CEO types, regardless of their ideology, have a unique perspective on the federal budget, he said.
"Businesspeople see this enormous waste (in defense spending) and it drives them up a wall," Cohen said. "If the head of a public company ran their business like this, they'd be thrown in jail."
Another insight from the world of business is adapting to change.
"We're always striving as businesspeople to change what we're doing to conform to changes in the environment," Cohen said, citing one example from Ben & Jerry's past: When frozen yogurt started to become popular, Ben & Jerry's had to decide if it should carry a product with the stigma of "health food." (It did.)
The analogy to defense spending is apparent, Langley said. "We won the Cold War. The world changed. But we're still spending ourselves into oblivion" on obsolete weapons.
Lawrence Korb, assistant secretary of defense under President Ronald Reagan, wrote a report that Business Leaders for Sensible Priorities distributes, pinpointing how to save $60 billion at the Pentagon by reducing the country's nuclear arsenal, cutting its National Missile Defense program, scaling back obsolete weapons, eliminating some forces and reducing earmarks in the budget. The group would like to see the money saved allocated to education, health care, alternative energy and other social programs. Its proposal does not address war spending in Iraq and Afghanistan, but the so-called base military budget.
That message is likely to find receptive ears in progressive circles, but what impact will it have in the halls of Congress?
The budget released Monday by the Bush administration ramped up military spending to the highest level, adjusted for inflation, since World War II. At the same time, the leaders of the Army, Navy and Air Force were quoted this week saying they think the Pentagon needs even more money.
John Pitney, a professor of government at Claremont McKenna College, said he thinks the group's impact will depend on fine-tuning its agenda.
"If they can concentrate on one or two weapons systems where their case is very strong, that's where they can have an impact," he said. "If they spread their effort over a whole variety of budget items, it's not likely they'll leave much of a mark."
Langley said the group is realistic about what it can accomplish.
"We would consider it a significant victory if we could just hold the line so (the base military budget) is no bigger than last year," he said.
So far, Business Leaders for Sensible Priorities has placed full-page newspaper ads and written letters to the editor; generated press coverage, helped in part by Cohen's teddy-bear image; and formed a spin-off online activist group, TrueMajority.org, which now has half a million members.
It's embraced creative strategies, such as using Oreos to demonstrate how the budget is distributed and handing out pens with a pullout chart showing where federal money currently goes and how funds could be redirected.
Two Bay Area members of Congress, Reps. Barbara Lee, D-Oakland, and Lynn Woolsey, D-Petaluma, sponsored the group's Common Sense Budget Act last year and plan to do so again this year.
But even with a Democratic Congress, Cohen admits he doesn't expect the Common Sense Budget Act to pass.
"If you talk about reducing the Pentagon budget, you're accused of being weak on defense," Cohen said. "That's political suicide."
Pitney agreed. "It's the rare Democrat who really wants to take a meat ax to the Pentagon," he said.
Business Leaders for Sensible Priorities is now pursuing its agenda through presidential candidates. But it's not targeting the contenders directly. It's set up field offices in New Hampshire and Iowa. In that prairie state, where the group has 13 people on the ground, the goal is to sign up people going to the Iowa caucus to vote only for presidential candidates who support the Common Sense Budget Act. It hopes to get 8,000 to 10,000 votes out of a possible 100,000.
"If we can influence how the presidential candidates deal with the issue of military spending, it's huge," said San Franciscan Elliot Hoffman, founder of the Just Desserts bakery and sweet shop chain and a member of Business Leaders for Sensible Priorities. "The trick will be what happens when the candidates move on (from Iowa and New Hampshire). I think people have been hoodwinked, quite frankly, into believing we need to spend this kind of money on military."
Steve Kosiak, director of budget studies at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessment, a nonpartisan think tank in Washington, said that while he's not familiar with the details of the group's plan, "even after a $60 billion cut, the U.S. defense budget would certainly be very high compared to other nations or to the average U.S. defense budgets over the past 50 years or so. It would still be a very robust military."
Mike Kappus, owner and president of San Francisco's Rosebud Talent Agency, booking agency for roots-influenced musicians worldwide, said he joined Business Leaders for Sensible Priorities because its approach made sense.
"As a small-business owner you have to watch the dollars," he said. "A tremendous difference could be made if we had efficiency experts in the government checking. The (military purchasing) $1,000 toilet seats and $750 hammers became famous. There is various other waste and failure to follow through on how money is being spent."
The two organizations are at www.sensiblepriorities.org and www.truemajority.org.
February 10, 2007
Pg. C1
Group of business leaders targets military spending in federal budget
By Carolyn Said, Chronicle Staff Writer
What qualifies folksy businessman Ben Cohen, the man who gave the world Wavy Gravy ice cream, to critique the $2.9 trillion federal budget unveiled on Monday?
And not just to repeat liberal platitudes about less money for defense and more for social welfare, but to cite chapter and verse on F/A-22 Raptor fighter jets and DD(X) destroyers that should be axed, slashing $60 billion from basic military spending?
Cohen is president of a group called Business Leaders for Sensible Priorities, which he founded in 1998. The bipartisan organization now numbers about 700 members, including Ted Turner and Paul Newman, plus an advisory roster of retired top military officials. About 80 Bay Area businesspeople are in the group, including the new chairman, San Francisco investor Warren Langley, the former president of the Pacific Exchange stock and options market.
Cohen and Langley ask, Who is more financially astute and better qualified than a corporate chief executive to comment on budget matters?
"Businesspeople are presumed to have credibility in dealing with huge amounts of money and difficult budgetary trade-offs," said Cohen, the co-founder of Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream.
CEO types, regardless of their ideology, have a unique perspective on the federal budget, he said.
"Businesspeople see this enormous waste (in defense spending) and it drives them up a wall," Cohen said. "If the head of a public company ran their business like this, they'd be thrown in jail."
Another insight from the world of business is adapting to change.
"We're always striving as businesspeople to change what we're doing to conform to changes in the environment," Cohen said, citing one example from Ben & Jerry's past: When frozen yogurt started to become popular, Ben & Jerry's had to decide if it should carry a product with the stigma of "health food." (It did.)
The analogy to defense spending is apparent, Langley said. "We won the Cold War. The world changed. But we're still spending ourselves into oblivion" on obsolete weapons.
Lawrence Korb, assistant secretary of defense under President Ronald Reagan, wrote a report that Business Leaders for Sensible Priorities distributes, pinpointing how to save $60 billion at the Pentagon by reducing the country's nuclear arsenal, cutting its National Missile Defense program, scaling back obsolete weapons, eliminating some forces and reducing earmarks in the budget. The group would like to see the money saved allocated to education, health care, alternative energy and other social programs. Its proposal does not address war spending in Iraq and Afghanistan, but the so-called base military budget.
That message is likely to find receptive ears in progressive circles, but what impact will it have in the halls of Congress?
The budget released Monday by the Bush administration ramped up military spending to the highest level, adjusted for inflation, since World War II. At the same time, the leaders of the Army, Navy and Air Force were quoted this week saying they think the Pentagon needs even more money.
John Pitney, a professor of government at Claremont McKenna College, said he thinks the group's impact will depend on fine-tuning its agenda.
"If they can concentrate on one or two weapons systems where their case is very strong, that's where they can have an impact," he said. "If they spread their effort over a whole variety of budget items, it's not likely they'll leave much of a mark."
Langley said the group is realistic about what it can accomplish.
"We would consider it a significant victory if we could just hold the line so (the base military budget) is no bigger than last year," he said.
So far, Business Leaders for Sensible Priorities has placed full-page newspaper ads and written letters to the editor; generated press coverage, helped in part by Cohen's teddy-bear image; and formed a spin-off online activist group, TrueMajority.org, which now has half a million members.
It's embraced creative strategies, such as using Oreos to demonstrate how the budget is distributed and handing out pens with a pullout chart showing where federal money currently goes and how funds could be redirected.
Two Bay Area members of Congress, Reps. Barbara Lee, D-Oakland, and Lynn Woolsey, D-Petaluma, sponsored the group's Common Sense Budget Act last year and plan to do so again this year.
But even with a Democratic Congress, Cohen admits he doesn't expect the Common Sense Budget Act to pass.
"If you talk about reducing the Pentagon budget, you're accused of being weak on defense," Cohen said. "That's political suicide."
Pitney agreed. "It's the rare Democrat who really wants to take a meat ax to the Pentagon," he said.
Business Leaders for Sensible Priorities is now pursuing its agenda through presidential candidates. But it's not targeting the contenders directly. It's set up field offices in New Hampshire and Iowa. In that prairie state, where the group has 13 people on the ground, the goal is to sign up people going to the Iowa caucus to vote only for presidential candidates who support the Common Sense Budget Act. It hopes to get 8,000 to 10,000 votes out of a possible 100,000.
"If we can influence how the presidential candidates deal with the issue of military spending, it's huge," said San Franciscan Elliot Hoffman, founder of the Just Desserts bakery and sweet shop chain and a member of Business Leaders for Sensible Priorities. "The trick will be what happens when the candidates move on (from Iowa and New Hampshire). I think people have been hoodwinked, quite frankly, into believing we need to spend this kind of money on military."
Steve Kosiak, director of budget studies at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessment, a nonpartisan think tank in Washington, said that while he's not familiar with the details of the group's plan, "even after a $60 billion cut, the U.S. defense budget would certainly be very high compared to other nations or to the average U.S. defense budgets over the past 50 years or so. It would still be a very robust military."
Mike Kappus, owner and president of San Francisco's Rosebud Talent Agency, booking agency for roots-influenced musicians worldwide, said he joined Business Leaders for Sensible Priorities because its approach made sense.
"As a small-business owner you have to watch the dollars," he said. "A tremendous difference could be made if we had efficiency experts in the government checking. The (military purchasing) $1,000 toilet seats and $750 hammers became famous. There is various other waste and failure to follow through on how money is being spent."
The two organizations are at www.sensiblepriorities.org and www.truemajority.org.
