What Is This..."Common Sense" of Which You Speak?

In yesterday's The Hill:

Liberals seek $60B in cuts to defense

In its latest move to draw attention to liberal ideas, the Congressional Progressive Caucus will introduce a plan today to divert $60 billion in defense spending to humanitarian assistance, social programs, energy conservation, homeland security and deficit reduction.

Leaders of the caucus argue that the military funding goes to unnecessary Cold War-era programs and could be spent better elsewhere.

"I think it’s time for Congress and the House to talk about the huge amount of tax dollars going for weapons systems designed to fight a Cold War that doesn’t exist," said Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), co-chairwoman of the 62-member Democratic group. "I don’t think people realize the billions of dollars that are being wasted."

The plan, dubbed the Common Sense Budget Act, would direct savings in military spending toward humanitarian assistance and food aid ($13 billion), modernizing public schools ($10 billion), providing health insurance to uninsured children ($10 billion), energy conservation ($10 billion), training unemployed workers ($5 billion), homeland security ($5 billion), deficit reduction ($5 billion) and medical research ($2 billion).

Worried about Democrats looking soft on defense? Check this out:

Some political observers fear that publicizing a Democratic proposal to cut military spending could open Democrats up to criticism that they are weak on security issues. But Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-Calif.), the other co-chairwoman of the caucus, argued that the defense spending is not crucial to national defense, noting that a panel of military experts had vetted the Democrats’ plan.

"We’re talking about taking 60 billion away from defense programs we don’t even use."(emphasis mine) "To me, that looks like Democrats are making sense," she said. "If all you do around here is fear that it’s going to look like something you shouldn’t look like rather than something you should look like, then you’re wasting your time."

"We can invest in our children and invest in the security of our country," she added.

Sounds pretty common sense to me. Which is why it falls under the realm of "crazy talk." But it's so crazy, it just might work...