On Tuesday evening Hillary and her favorite Republican (besides Michael Bloomberg), Sen. Lindsey Graham, held a roundtable discussion on the future of the defense industry in the global economy. Both Hill and Linds are members of the Senate Armed Services Committee and of the Senate Manufacturing Caucus.
They surprisingly agreed that they would work with the Bush administration to cut the large number of U.S. defense industry items now subject to strict export controls. It’s interesting because the Daily Kos crowd strongly supports the export control system we have in place now, which requires manufacturers (or “merchants of death” as they prefer to call them) to undergo a rigorous licensing process to sell various weapons and technologies to other countries.
Hillary said she would work on cutting down the extensive list of military hardware that require licenses to sell overseas, and that hopefully the process could start this year. While Hillary is likely behind this issue as a way to look strong on defense and to help the American companies who are making the weaponry, this could be an issue that infuriates the left as much as her support of the war in Iraq.
