Obama Calls For Defense Spending Cuts

The Obama administration has asked the military's Joint Chiefs of Staff to cut the Pentagon's budget request for the fiscal year 2010 by more than 10 percent -- about $55 billion -- a senior U.S. defense official tells FOX News.

Read the whole story here.

Comments

[NobodysPoodle]

You people have got to be kidding me!

Do you really think that we should cut defense when we have two wars in progress. I myself had to spend almost $1000 to ensure I had the equipment I needed when I was deployed.

Get us out of Iraq and Afghanistan and then cut all you want.

[dems08]

"Recently, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Michael Mullen began to advocate nothing less than protecting the Pentagon budget by pegging defense spending to a fixed percentage of gross domestic product (GDP, the total value of goods and services produced by the economy).

This would, of course, mean simply throwing out serious strategic analysis of what is actually needed for national defense. Mullen wants, instead, to raise the annual defense budget in the worst of times to at least 4 percent of GDP.

Such a policy is clearly designed to deceive the public about ludicrously wasteful spending on weapons systems which has gone on for decades.

Each year, we Americans account for nearly half of all global military spending, an amount larger than the next 45 nations together spend on their militaries annually.

Equally striking, the military seems increasingly ill-adapted to the types of wars that Pentagon strategists agree the United States is most likely to fight in the future, and is, in fact, already fighting in Afghanistan – insurgencies led by non-state actors.

... the stressed out American taxpayer, already supporting two disastrous wars and the weapons systems that go with them, is also paying good money for weapons that are meant for fantasy wars, for wars that will only be fought in the battlescapes and war-gaming imaginations of Defense Department "planners."

quotes from Chalmers Johnson and Tom Engelhardt's "Economic Death Spiral at the Pentagon"

http://www.tomdispatch.com/

[cougar gal06]

I would like to encourage Congress to increase funding for fighting global poverty. The Borgen Project (www.borgenproject.org) has some great facts and ideas to help global poverty.
$30 billion to eliminate global poverty.
$522 billion on the U.S. defense budget.
There are 800 million people that go to sleep hungry every day, 300 million are children.

[CaptainStormfield]

http://www.cdi.org/program/issue/index.cfm?ProgramID=37&issueid=246

Chuck Spinney Defense Meltdown

[Peter007]

Defense contracts are the biggest special interest group in Washington.
I think a 50% cut would be better and it might save our economy.

[Fremon]

Right, what happened to Eisenhower's comments on the Military Industrial Complex. I know the South loves the military as it is a jobs program for their young men, but let's face it the Military has created wish lists for a type of war we don't fight and will not in the future. As all govt entities they want more money always and use patriotism and fear (with Republican support mostly) to do the asking. Has anyone ever identified the peace dividend that Reagan promised with the "fall" of the soviets. No, we created new enemies and war in order to spend (Greneda, Panama, and Iraq).

[brit prof]

The Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) is often invoked by the USA when criticising non-nuke-possessing countries' attempts to "get a hold of" this brand of WMD, (and tolerates Israel's apparent possession of same on the grounds that they did not sign the NPT).

It's interesting isn't it that when this topic is discussed no news agency actually informs the public of what the treaty says which is this, (and I paraphrase): "We, the 5 declared nuclear powers promise not to develop better nukes, will not stockpile and will work towards ridding the world of nuclear weapons. In exchange, you guys who don't have nukes promise not to pursue them".

That's the gist of the treaty and the big 5 have renaged on their side of the bargain. The NPT is therefore void. Since the USA, China, Russia (USSR as was), Britain and France have not abided by the treaty then no-one else is bound by it either.

The US budget can be slashed if US nukes were cut back as required by the treaty which it signed--indeed, co-authored.

[emily00011]

It's a bit foolish to think that the defense department couldn't do the same job while cutting 10%. Repubs think everyone else should be less porky and inefficient, why not the defense dept too?

They are afraid some of their pals won't get as big of juicy contracts, of course.

[Grunty1]

Obama could probalby cut 50% of the budget and have no real impact on the important functions of the agency. The amount of money we waste on unnecessary weapon systems is ridiculous. Just look at the missile defense system that has a less than 50% chance to intercept a missile when we know its exact flight path...

[CaptainStormfield]

Defense contractors have a huge lobby and that spending is a sacred cow for Dems and ReThugs..

[dems08]

"18 of the top 20 recipients of federal bailout money spent a combined $12.2 million lobbying the White House, the Treasury Department, Congress and federal agencies during the last quarter of 2008."

(sorry about the source... )

http://washingtontimes.com/news/2009/jan/23/top-bailout-recipients-also-major-lobbyists/

[AliMB]

This news shouldn't really been seen as a surprise. In a December Foreign Affairs article, Secretary Gates came out with a fairly critical article of the defense industry and Pentagon bureaucracy. He basically argued that there was too much focus on high-cost w e a p o n s programs designed for future w a r s and not enough emphasis on weapons that will help us win today's wars against complex counter i n s u r g e n c i e s . I think the most common example is the F - 2 2 .

Also, in his recent hearing before Congress, Secretary Gates said that "we have known for many months is that the spigot of defense funding opened by 9 / 1 1 is closing... with two major campaigns ongoing, the economic crisis and resulting budget pressures will force hard choices on this department." In the end, I doubt this was a decision taken solely by President Obama.

They key to successful defense R & D/procurement is to guarantee the money that will be allocated to DOD be used more efficiently; the defense industry should heed the Secretary's advice and specialize in churning out equipment that can be used for COIN tactics. The most pressing needs are often seemingly the smallest ones; for example, Marines in Afghanistan need to find a way to move their I E D - r e s i s t ant trucks better over the r o u g

[AliMB]

...better over the rough terrain

[TheBaffler]

Not enough. We need to end the wars against Iraq and Afghanistan now, and stop letting ourselves get bilked by the likes of Halliburton.

[Gripen]

I dont see how 10% can hurt US defense capability. US can cut it 50-75% and still spend msot in the world on defense.

[gdaerin]

excellent! glad to hear it, take that neocons!

[totalliberal]

Fox loves promoting fear among it's less than intelligent viewers. Do we need military bases in almost every country in the world? Do we need more nuclear subs? Do we need more aircraft carriers? Let's spend more money on police who are the real preventers of terrorist attacks. Hell, do we need a military spending that is bigger than all of the rest of the world combined? Maybe it's time to forget about the military-industrial complex that wants us to have more enemies than friends.

[johnie2xs]

Just as an after thought; If it becomes necessary to build any new "Capital Ship", please pass whatever directive necessary whereby it is NOT named after GWB. Please!!! That would send a horrible message.

[Ramirez]

It's not that big a surprise that a Democrat would be cutting defense spending. It's in their DNA.

[totalliberal]

I do believe that it was Republican Dwight Eisenhower that warned us about the military industrial complex and it's overweening need to spend all our money on defense.

[Ramirez]

He warned of the "undue influence" of the M-I complex. Undue influence is always bad.

[plpfctn]

no president spent more on defense than FDR.

[frantaylor]

It's not that big a surprise that a Republican would be increasing defense spending. It's called 'undue influence' (your words)..

[emily00011]

like borrowing from china is in repub's dna?
Squandering America's future is also in repub DNA. They can only think about the now. They have NO long term thinking!!!!!

[Peter007]

The military hasn't produced anything for the world during the past 50 years other than dead bodies and burnt out buildings. They are Washington' s biggest PORK spending outlet.
Cut it 70% to get in line with the rest of the world.

[John8701]

There are so many better places to cut spending. We should start with the Obama Stimulus Package. If you want to see the package stopped go to www.wewantavote.org and sign our petition.

[frantaylor]

Because it's clearly better to spend money bombing other countries than it is to spend it on our own people.

[walk0nwalls]

I'm down.