In a June 28 Wall Street Journal commentary, editorial page senior economics writer Stephen Moore quoted former Sen. Phil Gramm (R-TX), economic adviser to Sen. John McCain, saying McCain is “going to cut the defense budget by making major changes in procurement. As we win the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, we must use every penny of savings for deficit reduction. And we're going to restore strict fiscal spending targets like we had in the late 1990s.” Moore later quoted Gramm saying of Democrats in Congress: “They could blackmail [former President Ronald] Reagan by threatening to cut defense. But there is nothing John McCain wants from Congress. He wants to cut defense. There's no place they can take him in cutting spending that he's not willing to go” [emphasis in original]. Moore did not mention, however, that Gramm's assertion that McCain "wants to cut defense" is inconsistent with McCain's own November 2007 assertion that the United States needs “additional investment” in the military and “can afford to spend more on national defense.”

In an article for the November/December 2007 edition of Foreign Affairs, McCain wrote:

Along with more personnel, our military needs additional equipment in order to make up for its recent losses and modernize. We can partially offset some of this additional investment by cutting wasteful spending. But we can also afford to spend more on national defense, which currently consumes less than four cents of every dollar that our economy generates -- far less than what we spent during the Cold War.

Media Matters for America and Atlantic associate editor Matthew Yglesias have previously noted other instances in which media figures have allowed McCain surrogates to claim McCain favors cuts in defense spending without noting what he wrote in Foreign Affairs.

From Moore's June 28 Wall Street Journal commentary:

Mr. Gramm has a nearly fanatical faith that Mr. McCain will alter the rotten GOP culture of overspending and even balance the budget in four years, which to Mr. Gramm is the Holy Grail of economic policy. He has it all mapped out: “John's going to cut the defense budget by making major changes in procurement. As we win the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, we must use every penny of savings for deficit reduction. And we're going to restore strict fiscal spending targets like we had in the late 1990s.”

I confess skepticism. How do you get Democrats -- who have grand designs to spend and are very likely to have big majorities in the House and Senate under a McCain presidency -- to buy into this program?

To Mr. Gramm, the silver bullet is the veto pen. Here's his explanation: “If McCain is elected, he's going to have one thing Democrats in Congress desperately want: control of the money. And his ability to promote his agenda -- the tax cuts, his foreign policy -- will depend on his willingness to say no. Bush simply signed everything. They could blackmail Reagan by threatening to cut defense. But there is nothing John McCain wants from Congress. He wants to cut defense. There's no place they can take him in cutting spending that he's not willing to go.”