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During a decade of warfare, the Pentagon mostly had its way with budgets, as
Congress was reluctant to turn down many spending requests for troops in the
field. There was billions here for IED-detection and billions there for weapons
like the F-35 joint strike fighter, the Virginia class of
submarines, or the Predator drone.
And while the Pentagon was just beginning to trim its spending over the last
year, the debt deal approved by Congress this week raises the
possibility of steeper cuts between $350 billion and $800 billion over the next
decade. And that has left even the most veteran Pentagon budget watchers
surprised.
Nearly everyone in Washington, including Panetta, has known for some time
that the defense budget would be cut: al Qaeda is now vanquished, or nearly so,
as Americans learned recently from White House officials, and
troops are coming home from Afghanistan. Analysts believe the defense cuts for
the short term will be modest, and that cuts over the next decade or so may
sound nasty, but they will be determined by the next president and consequently
may never be enacted.
Defense, along with entitlements, need to reduce themselves by at least 1/3rd over the next decade. We do not need war time level spending as the norm for our defense budget. Its not sustainable, nor intelligent, nor fiscally responsible, nor even necessary and would produce an atmosphere and beuracracy of waste as we move farther from the ground wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. It will however be a slow trickle in a larger budget if entitlements aren't cut along side with it.
Our armed forces have been cut in half over the past two decades. If we decrease it by another third, what will be left?
All these cuts will cost lives.
Not if we pull our ass out of the Middle East.
‘Pentagon’s Worst Nightmare’ - Yahoo! News
Well - I support efforts to quell the beast and downgrade things. I don't think it's as dramatic as people are making it out to be.
"Analysts believe the defense cuts for
the short term will be modest, and that cuts over the next decade or so may
sound nasty, but they will be determined by the next president and consequently
may never be enacted."
Why am I not surprised? I bet when a republican is elected, they'll beef the spending back up... :roll:
What about the next war that comes along?...and yes...there will be another one. It would be idiotic not to mention very dangerous to assume that there won't be.
What about the next war that comes along?...and yes...there will be another one. It would be idiotic not to mention very dangerous to assume that there won't be.
Our military spending is greater than the rest of the world's military spending combined. It's absurd.
Hence the reason the rest of the world thinks twice before ****ing with us and the reason we can kick the crap out of a million man army, with and army half that size, in a week and only take 100 KIA's.
Absurd? Not hardly, sir!
Hence the reason the rest of the world thinks twice before ****ing with us and the reason we can kick the crap out of a million man army, with and army half that size, in a week and only take 100 KIA's.
Absurd? Not hardly, sir!
I'm in favor of defense cuts by decreasing it to its 2/3 size.
However, a much more serious issue in the US military is not about spendng cuts, but about how to cut waste that occurs in truckloads in the forms of cost overruns, etc...
If the defense budget is fully reformed, it would be like cutting the budget to 1/2 of its size while still maitaining every troop, every piece of equipment, everything but those civilian bureaucrats that have jobs giving them lavish bonuses every time a military personnel does a better job, and the bureaucrat receives the credit, hence the bonus
Iraq's army was a joke, and even then it took us five years to effectively secure the country. Afghanistan's army is practically in the stone age and we're not exactly putting the fear of God into them.
Our army was built to fight the Cold War -- not the spot conflicts we're facing.
If something really bad crops up there is always the option of instituting a draft.
I'm in favor of defense cuts by decreasing it to its 2/3 size.
However, a much more serious issue in the US military is not about spendng cuts, but about how to cut waste that occurs in truckloads in the forms of cost overruns, etc...
If the defense budget is fully reformed, it would be like cutting the budget to 1/2 of its size while still maitaining every troop, every piece of equipment, everything but those civilian bureaucrats that have jobs giving them lavish bonuses every time a military personnel does a better job, and the bureaucrat receives the credit, hence the bonus
Our armed forces have been cut in half over the past two decades. If we decrease it by another third, what will be left?
All these cuts will cost lives.
Afganistan - October 7th 2001 - August 3rd 2011.
9 years, 9 months 28 days.
still there.
hardly an ass kicking.
That's so undeniably incorrect and patently false I don't know where to begin.
In 1990 Defense spending was roughly just under 6% of GDP. "Two Decades" after it was just over 6% GDP. Even at its absolute lowest, around 98/99, it was still solidly more than 3% GDP so was not "half".
How about in straight dollars adjusted for inflation? In 1990 we would've been just shy of 500 Billion. In 2010 we would've been just over 800 Billion. That's not cutting in half, that's raising it by more than half and is actually double what it was at its lowest, which would've been a shade under 400 Billion in 98/99.
How about just flat out dollars, not even adjusted? You go from just over $300 billion to just over $600 billion.
You got numbers saying otherwise, please present them. But from what I've seen you're math isn't just wrong...its devastatingly wrong depending how you look at it. Best case scenario is that over the past 2 decades we maintained roughly the same amount of average defense spending as a percent of GDP.
As I said, I'd be happy to see numbers to the contrary, but right now it looks like you're just factually horribly incorrect.
link
You can throw up all the GDP numbers you want, but I prefer to reside in the real world.
The United States military fields half the combat power it did in 1990. You can through those GDP numbers in the enemy's face and he'll shoot your ass. You'll probably die, because the defense cuts didn't allow enough money for dustoff assets to evac you from the battlefield.
It's hard to understand exactly what you are debating, because your posts are not very clear...
You think that our service members are parasites, so I don't expect you to get it, anyway. The more of them that die on the battlefield, the fewer of them that we have to support when they come home. Right?
Not if we pull our ass out of the Middle East.
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