A growing number of centrist Democrats say they’re open to trimming Pentagon spending in the face of record budget deficits and mounting public debt.
[…]
“We are going to have to adopt the philosophy that nothing can be off the table,” said Rep. Walt Minnick (D-Idaho), one of the first members of the class of 2008 to be admitted into the Blue Dog Coalition. “And that is increasingly becoming the dominant view of the Blue Dogs.”
[…]
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) put the once-sacrosanct defense budget on the chopping block this week by stating that Pentagon spending cannot be excluded from deficit-reduction talks. In prior years, such a floated proposal would have been shot down immediately. But it’s still airborne. […] Hoyer has given no details of how much he thinks the defense budget should be cut or by when. But he lavished praise on Defense Secretary Robert Gates’s initiative to free up approximately $100 billion — or roughly one-sixth — of the Pentagon’s budget through the elimination of costly and unnecessary weapons systems, trimming the Pentagon’s bureaucracy, and the reduction of healthcare costs.
[…]
While Hoyer credited Gates for his willingness to fight Congress, if necessary, to prevent spending on additional C-17 cargo planes and an alternate engine for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, he made no mention of the nearly $1 trillion in cuts to the Pentagon’s budget over the next decade that was recommended by a panel commissioned by one of the House’s leading liberals, Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.).
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Congrats to the blue dogs for taking the initiative (Democrats usually do) to cut sacred cow spending.
However, I wouldn’t trust working with Republicans on this and urge caution as well as unilateralism.
We all know an army of lobbyists is ready to give Repugs a vacation trip, fishing rod or a bathroom blow job to win them over.
I will believe it when I see it. I have NO faith in legislators ability to control themselves … or keep it in their pants.
Well if they are going to cut defense, then they need to cut our commitments as well. Its time south Korea, Japan, and the EU to start run their own military bases. If the US has to cut back then we can’t afford to be taking care of the rest of the worlds security.
Stay predictable Uncle Dave. You think it’s the DEFENSE budget that has quadrupled the deficit since Obama got into office? There are far less important things we could cut – Fannie and Freddie to start, any assistance going to illegal aliens, legalizing marijuana and stop throwing money at the drug war, etc.
According to Wikipedia, 2009 Federal receipts totaled 2,105 billion and 2009 spending on defense, Social Security, and Medicare and Medicaid totaled 2,141 billion.
I’m certainly not an economist or a budget expert, but it seems to me that something is going to have be done about these three programs if we ever hope to have a balanced budget again.
Well if you chop out the defense budget and NASA in total would that cover the new health care bill? I sort of doubt it.
Then they are going to fix the energy problem with the new energy bill which should about double the energy costs of many Americans.
“$1 trillion in cuts to the Pentagon’s budget over the next decade that was recommended by a panel commissioned by one of the House’s leading liberals, Rep. Barney”
Speaking of blow jobs, here is this jerk trying to screw the country again.
Just shut the military down we really have no need for it with our foreign and immigration policy or lack of. Then we can spend the defense budget on buying liberal votes err I mean entitlements.
#7
According to the DoD website the defense budget for the current year is about 660Bn. Assume that over the decade each year accounts for 10% of the total budget cut, or 100Bn per year. That would be a 15% cut.
Oh heavens, no!
Since we decided to visit Iraq and Afghanistan we don’t even spend as much as the next 10 nations combined. We spend more! 70% of world military expenditures. How can it be “defense” is we outspend everybody else combined by 20%. That is just insane.
Using the ever handy, but sometimes questionable, wolframalpha.com do a comparison of military spending per capita between the U.S. and China.
We spend about $1600 per person. China spends $87 per person. And a fight with China is the defense hawk’s wet dream. That is supposed to be why we need all those next-gen weapons systems.
Obviously, 5th generation fighter aircraft are useless against people who live in caves. GWOT should be a much lower budget affair. Look at history, current affairs and demographics; there is no way China is spoiling for a fight in the next 50 years. Maybe they are going to be sly and hit us in 75 years. Sure, that is a sane way of allocating, increasingly, scarce resources…
No sane opponent is going to engage us in a direct military confrontation. We are going to continually face insurgent opponents because everyone who dislikes us has already gotten the memo. The tech heavy shit is the most expensive and the most useless.
Notice I haven’t advocated decreasing our foreign basing or direct involvement in areas which have no direct impact on our domestic security( those would be a good ideas, though). We could still be arrogant and overbearing with much greater efficiency.
This is a good idea. But if they get it done, cue Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity, et al to start a HUGE push with the idea that Obama is decimating the military and leaving the country totally unprotected. I guarantee this will happen!