Differences Between Views Of Political Candidates Essays Example

Different political candidates have differing views about many subjects relating to leadership. In the quest to win the support of the electorate, political candidates formulate policies and manifestoes that will guide their work towards achieving certain goals. This paper focuses on the differing views of the political candidates in the 2012 United States presidential candidates on defense. Presidential hopefuls, Republican Mitt Romney and the eventual winner, Democrat nominee Barrack Obama were at diametric positions with regard to military spending and the broader defense strategy. This debate and the disagreement on this essential issue particularly with the increasing security concerns becomes all the more interesting considering the U.S budget deficits. The country was faced with an imminent sequestration, a trillion-dollar deficit and several other problems that afflicted the policy making process.
On his part, Democrat Obama proposed the saving of nearly half a trillion dollars in defense costs over the following decade, relative to his own administration’s prior plans. This meant that there would be cuts in spending of up to $350 billion dollars relative to where defense would go if allowed to. Several measures would have to be undertaken to ensure that this would be achieved. So as to accomplish this feat, the ground forces would have to be reduced almost back to the period before the September 2001 attacks. In addition, there would have to be cancelling or scaling back of a few major weapons programs. Further, there would have to be declines in the costs of war. The remainder of the defense budget under the Obama proposal would still finance an ambitious weapons modernization agenda. This modernization agenda would even include the acquisition of up to 2,500 fighter aircraft and about nine new Navy ships annually.
Also included in the views of Obama military spending and the whole defense strategy was the protection of most military pay and other compensation. The remuneration of the military included the veteran’s benefits. Obama was of the strong opinionated view against further cuts including the additional $500 billion over a decade that would have obtained as a result of the sequestration. It was also clear that Obama did not agree with the Simpson-Bowles Commission to the extent of the viability of extra reductions of the size- even if it would be done through other methods besides sequestration.
Conversely, Republican Mitt Romney opposed the first $500 billion in ten year cuts in spending as proposed by Obama. Romney was also opposed to the nearly $100 billion in five year military cuts that Obama had made earlier in his preexisting term as president. Mitt Romney was of the view that the Navy Ship building budget be increased to 15 ships a year and maintain ground forces at the point where they were. The ground forces were an extra 100,000 troops bigger than Obama had predicted. Romney was also bullish about missile defense and he might also be expected to reopen the production line for the F-22 fighter jet. Further views of Mitt Romney on the defense may be obtained from his campaign website. His website had information to the effect that Romney aspired to devote at least 4 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product to the armed forces. This would mean that military or defense spending would shoot in a substantial manner in the long term. In fact, this increase in spending would surpass Obama’s plan by an amount as big as $200 billion each year.
It may well be stated that Romney was a candidate who sought to solve every global problem with the aid of a military tool. Indeed, his proposal was similar in a number of ways to the defense plan proposed by Obama in the year 2009 and 2010. The main sources of the views trace its origins to party policies and manifestos. The Democrats are more liberal while the Republicans tend to favor the use of the military to keep security. To this end, most Republicans are conservatives who are never keen on the cutting of spending on the military and hence the stance by Republican Mitt Romney. Before considering the point of view that is most reasonable between that proposed by Romney and Obama at the time, it is crucial to state that the budget deficit posed a unique situation. One of the turning points was the expected sequestration that was anticipated to happen and which could have thrown up the budget process into chaos. Sequestration could lead to the dismissal of around 15 percent of the civilian workforce besides seriously disrupting the procurement of weapons. The more important problem which was inevitable if the plans by the candidates were to be followed was the lack of adequate funding.
As such, it must be set out that each of the candidates needed to cut on both forces and weapons if their respective plans were to be sustainable. Be that as it may, I consider the Obama defense plan or point of view more reasonable. This is because of his projected deficits which according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget would be less than Romney’s and thus was more feasible. In addition, the point of view of Obama is reinforced by the fact that the Navy can find better ways to deploy its ships abroad, and thus dispense with the need of building more ships at a faster rate as proposed by Romney.