Alameda Congressional Candidate Takes Aim At Military Budget
By Larry Freeman
Part I
Alameda Vice Mayor Tony Daysog stood out from the other 146 entrants in Alameda’s 2023 Fourth Of July Parade by being the only participant to represent twice.
His first showing came in his role as Vice Mayor with the second grounded in his Congressional candidacy as a Democrat seeking the seat in California’s 12th U.S. Congressional District.
The seat will be up for grabs after incumbent Barbara Lee vacates it to seek Senator Diane Feinstein’s spot after the aging veteran retires.
But Daysog also seeks to differentiate himself by standing apart from the vast majority of House members –both Democrat and Republican– who traditionally vote to increase funding for the U.S. military.
Candidate Daysog plans to straddle an electric third rail of politics by advocating for legislation to reduce military funding beyond just that of trimming purported waste in the Department Of Defense’s budget.
“We’re so good at war. I think I can bring a message that’s authentic to talk about the necessity of lessening our military budget; the necessity of talking about peace…to orient ourselves to becoming a more peaceful society that invests more in the well being of its individuals , “ he said in an exclusive, hour long interview with ANN.
Daysog won’t quite be alone in his stance, as just under 20% of current House members –45 Democrats and 35 Republicans– voted to trim the 2023 military budget by 1% in a failed bid to shift funding to other domestic needs or to reduce the deficit.
He also expressly shares the same general goal with one of his four opponents in the race, Denard Ingram, who states on his webpage that The Department of Defense “consistently fails fraud and wasteful spending measures. Until the DOD can accurately justify such an inflated budget, those tax dollars would be better utilized funding other initiatives that directly benefit the average American.”
Still, cutting defense budgets, much less putting that policy goal at the top of an agenda, goes against the grain of Congressional will dating back to 1960.
Since then, there have only been eight cuts to defense spending, with the last two trimming $46 B and $22 B respectively in 2014 and 2013, during the Obama years.
The military budget grew consistently during the “America First” years of Trump who proffered to roll back U.S. military and economic global reach, but did not trim the military’s budget nor substantively reduce the footprint of the U .S. military, nor trim its budget, most notably in Europe, with regard to NATO
U.S. Military spending has continued to grow, in terms of dollars allocated, under Biden as well, with defense spending rising $118 B from 2020 to its current level of $858 B.
Nonetheless, Daysog seems undaunted in his mission to swim against the tide.
“If I could find six other votes who were adamant about lessening our 850 B dollar budget, I think that’s all it takes. I think that people are overthinking this,” said Daysog.
His drive is grounded in two basic elements. The first has to do with the razor thin GOP hold on the House and the second with respect to Daysog’s sense of history.
His Congressional calculus rests on the prospect of Democrats flipping the House in November, 2024.
“Kevin McCarthy’s five vote hold on Congress also means that Dems are five votes short. So if a newbie Congress member, Tony D was somehow able to find five or six other Congress members who were of a like mind, I think you are in a position to influence the other 212 Democrats, “ he said.
Daysog recognizes that doing so won’t be a go it alone process. He says that he would need to find and form a coalition of “ like minded newly elected congress persons” and that getting it done “is not necessarily as daunting as one thinks because the margins are so slim right now in congress and probably will be for the next two to six years. So I think there is a rare window where it is not out of the realm of possibility. “
His belief that what to many may seem like a long shot seems steadfast.
Acknowledging his never having had congressional experience, Daysog sees the goal as “a journey of small steps,” adding that, “It’s not out of the realm of possibility over the next two to five years. “
“You’re asking if it’s practical, and I think … yeah. ”
For Daysog , history is a second, more profound guide in shaping his views on U.S. Defense spending and its impact on the price tag of funding our nation’s world policeman role at the expense of domestic priorities .
His first sense of history is deeply personal, whereas the second is more academic and intellectual.
Daysog gets especially impassioned when he speaks of his mother’s experience as a survivor of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima near the end of World War II.
That deep and abiding personal belief is the initial appeal on the home page of his campaign website and clearly drives his choice to post his antipathy for war and defense cuts as the top agenda item.
“She and her family were all of 2.9 miles away from where the bomb dropped”
Though protected by surrounding hills from the massive explosive destruction of the bomb named “Little Boy,” “they still had the fallout of the black rain, “ he said.
Daysog recalls that,“ at the family farm, along the Urakami river, a doctor set up a clinic” where his mom and family members bore eye- witness to those devastated survivors who were deemed “the walking dead.”
“Our family, safe to say, as horrific as it is, was front and center of what the damage was” of one of war’s all time worst horrors.
That, he said, was the main motivating factor that got him into politics and still powers his views on war and its costs, especially the human ones.
“Anyway you look at it, war is always a tragic event, “ he noted, later invoking the widely known phrase that “War is Hell, ” a colloquialism deriving from the highly ironic phrase from General William Tecumseh Sherman in the U.S. Civil War that “War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it.”
But when it comes to the political and budgetary costs of war, Daysog invokes another sense of history to justify his stance, one that is out of the mainstream of a large swath of American politics, that, “ in terms of long term, strategic orientation of our military…we as the United States can no longer be the global cop. “
END OF PART ONE
LOOK FOR PART TWO SOON
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