More budget cuts for DoD
Fox News headlines today a story this morning about outgoing Secretary of Defense proposing cuts to his department’s budget;
Defense Secretary Robert Gates is announcing the latest round of cost-cutting measures for the military, including a plan to do away with a new amphibious vehicle that can ferry troops to shore while under fire.
The plan is aimed at staving off potentially deeper cuts by the White House or Congress by showing that the Pentagon is taking seriously a call to rein in the U.S. deficit.
Here’s a simple question: how many other government agencies are submitting programs they think ought to be cut? Before all y’all break Google looking for the answer, I’ll give it to you. None.
Gates is on his way out and DoD is a favorite target of Democrats. Now they’ve all discovered that they can cut defense spending while we’re engaged in a war around the world and no one gets pissed.
Newly elected lawmakers aligned with the ultraconservative tea party movement, including Sen. Rand Paul, have said that cuts to military spending must be considered if the federal government is to reduce its deficit.
Yup, even Rand Paul, who convinced a lot of people that he wasn’t allied with Adam Kokesh, the IVAW clown who made a video with Rand Paul to highlight their similarities during Kokeash’s failed congressional race in New Mexico. Now, Paul’s true anti-war colors come out. Why isn’t he calling for cuts in the redundant Commerce Department, or the absolutely useless Education Department?
So which is easier to cut, weapons or personnel? Weapons create jobs. So that leaves…well…you.
Category: Military issues, Veterans Issues
The military budget is 18%. Where are the recommended cuts to the other 82% of the budget?
We surely do need budget cuts, so that we can keep a strong defense. Let’s start with not flying the presidents pet to vacations on a separate jet. And, while we are there, why in hell does the president need a handler for his flippin’ dog? I don’t need one for mine, she travels with me or not at all. We were aghast when Tammy Faye Bakker had an air conditioned dog house. Sheee-it, that was paid for with money volunteeringly given. The Prez’ Pooch is supported with YOUR taxpayer dollars.
Where to from there?????????
On Senator Paul, well, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.
DOD’s budget truly is bloated, with a lot of programs that are not only redundant, but fatal to our troops.
When I could talk from Mez to Khandahar using a Soviet-made RL-130 radio, but couldn’t talk to the Americans in the next grid square with a gee-whiz American product, that’s a big lonely feeling.
I also believe that instead of doing the right thing and getting rid of the crap, the Army will cut all of its family, MWR, and health programs that were set in place (or actually funded) during GWOT.
Since there are almost no adults in Washington who are serious about entitlement reform cuts are going to come out of discretionary spending first and the DoD is about half of that number. Unfortunately the way that defense appropriations and contracting have been gerrymandered over the past 50 or 60 years pretty much guarantees that cuts will come from those areas that have the least political cover instead of where they’re needed.
If the Marine Corps doesn’t replace the AAV in 10 or 15 years it will be a 250,000 person amphibious force with no amphibious platform. The B-52 is projected to have been in service for 100 years by time it’s retired. A century. If they cancel the JSF all the services will be flying 50 year old platforms next to brand new European and Chinese planes by the time a new generation gets funding.
Housing? Morale and general welfare funding? All of that? It’s already half paid for in a corrupt system of cheap alcohol sales on base to young troops in the barracks. If the rest of the funding disappears the quality of life, and so the quality of enlistees, will plummet too. The best part is politicians don’t give a shit as long as their state or district keeps getting the funding for the base/unit that is irrelevant or redundant.
Lets start with cutting Congress *critters* pay to down below 70k, then their staffers, and right on down the chain of fed employees that do not serve in an authorized and documented hazardous duty position first. Raise soldier’s base & combat pay(including health care & retirement)substantially.
Do something about defense contractors that are skating around, over-running budgets and?
Just my $.02 worth
Well Congressional staffs actually have pretty tremendous workloads and I don’t really have a problem with giving them competitive pay. Same goes for federal employees. We should want good (not more) people running our government and competitive compensation packages is the way to do that, within reason of course. Most of the areas of true over compensation and flat out corruption happen at the state, county and municipal levels, especially in education.
In the end the only true way to address the budget is to fix Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Everything else is peripheral in it’s actual impact on the deficit.
#4: I disagree with a few of your comments.
Gerrymandering is re-drawing districts in order to effect a pre-determined outcome in an election, and in governance. Defense Contractors contribute heavily to election campaigns. They contribute even more whenever their programs are faced with down-sizing or elimination. Politicos favor only those who pay into the re-election account. That is corrupt, and protected by the Joint Ethics Regulation.
Why can’t the USMC order new AAV? The M113, and its variants have been around for decades. I’ve been given to understand a musket kills just as thoroughly as an M4. And it requires less maintenance. What does the ECV do that the AAV doesn’t? What does the AAV do that a canoe doesn’t?
We focus so often on the gee-whiz new, and then take 20 years to replicate it, that every new piece of gear of obsolete at fielding.
DaveO,
It is “gerrymandering” but of funds instead of votes. What contractors now do is spread various components of their systems or products to as many congressional districts as possible in order to corral the votes of that district’s Rep in the House during the appropriations process. Just look at the list of defense contractors of anyone on the Defense Appropriation Committee in the House on either side of the aisle. The B-2, for example, has a component built in almost every state. The same thing happens with bases. You have far left wing liberals (and right wing libertarians like Rand) who don’t give two shits about the military but all of a sudden are falling all over themselves to paint the unit or base in their district as “critical” because it means jobs which means votes which means re-election.
As for the AAV what I should have said is “viable amphibious platform”. The M113 doesn’t really swim in open water and can’t fight anything bigger than a clown car with a .50 cal taped to the moonroof. The AAV is 40 years old and can’t survive in modern combat environment against a real enemy without armored support, not to mention being a little more than a target of opportunity for IEDs. It’s a big bobbing bathtub of doom for anyone in it who takes fire while trying to make a landing. Better than a canoe but still not good. The AAAV is capable of truly swimming in the open ocean, is faster in the water (critical), is better armed, has superior armor and survivability and has a much better power projection capability past the beach which is critical for the Marines since their infantry formations are not organically mechanized like the Army.
I’d be in favor of cutting the military budget if it meant slashing the jobs of absolutely useless DoD civilians.
But that will never happen. As far as Democrats are concerned, that’s the LAST place we’d ever cut the budget.
Instead, we’ll cut “a new amphibious vehicle that can ferry troops to shore while under fire.” Yeah, we don’t need that. It’s not like we’re the military or something.
#8
I will continue to disagree with your term. I get the concept – increasing the chance of having an approved program of record by spreading the wealth, and risk. That didn’t help Crusader, or it’s follow-on howitzer.
I used the M113 as an example. What I’m getting at NotSoOldMarine is what is the purpose of an AAV, or generically speaking to any system? To transfer ground-fighting forces from a ship to shore. That is the core requirement for our Marine Corps.
I believe the Commandant spoke on looking at the Marine Corps returning to its core competencies, which armored combat is not one of them. The disconnect is his idea of having the Corps participate formally in Special Operations Command. Getting back to basics + expansion into a sexy cash-cow (Special Ops) + JSF = no money for a system that is a failure.
Look at it this way. If the new assault vehicle had passed all its trials and milestones, it would be exactly as advertised – fast, protective, lethal. But it has failed. And failed. And failed. And now folks are screaming to keep the program going. So it can fail again?
This reminds me so much of the historical documents that I’ve read concerning the DoD after WW2 and leading up to Korea. Everyone thought they could stop the Commies with the Atom Bomb. So why do we need an Army, Navy or Marine Corps if we have all these fancy bombers in the Air Force and all those pretty bombs that blow up entire cities in one blast? Then came a reality check as the NKPA rolled south and damned near conquered the entire Korean penninsula.
The major reason for all those budget cuts was that politicians had a distorted view of the world (Such as many do today!) and thought that places like the UN could solve problems through “diplomacy” instead of by the gun. Votes, budget cuts and headlines are the real driving force behind politicians and their never-ending quest for headlines. Look at the F22. Obama claims that we don’t need that many of them because there isn’t a credible threat to us anymore. What was just talked about starting yesterday in the news? A Chinese “stealth” fighter! The exact thing that the F22 is designed to find and destroy. No credible threat?
The only real reason he cut the F22 program was to save money. The F35 may be nice but it isn’t designed for the same mission as the F22. Real soldiers know you can’t have some whiz-bang gadget that does it all. Different tools for different jobs. And now, another politician is threatening the lives of our troops by denying them another vital tool for their jobs simply to “cut the budget”. Sensible cuts in areas that don’t affect the troops’ ability to do their jobs is the only thing that is acceptable. Not grandstanding for the cameras!!!
Oh, and Rand Paul is a duplicate of his father. A Libertarian who believes in isolationism. Thus, we don’t need a military if we’re never going overseas again. A concept that has proven time and again to not work in today’s world.