House refuses to cut military band budget

I'm not talking about my house; the McCollum proposal to slash band funding has always been a non-starter here in the blue house on Maple Street.

It's the House of Representatives that has defeated the proposition to cut the annual budget for military bands from $388 million to $200 million, and that's real news.

A spokesman for Representative Darrell Issa said, "Military bands are an essential element of our armed forces esprit de corps and are widely recognized and appreciated public symbols of our military tradition of ceremony, pageantry and discipline."

That's well put, in my opinion. Many Americans consider bands a frill, a sweet litle bit of frosting on the Armed Forces' cake. But bands exist not as a frivolous addition to our fighting forces. The purpose of military bands is, to use a term you see on bumper stickers from California to Maine, to Support Our Troops.

North San Diego's North County Times has the story.