Gates Starts Detailing Proposed Defense Cuts

Washington Post:

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates on Tuesday started laying out some details of his plans to save $100 billion over the next five years as he tries to run the Pentagon more efficiently.

Over the past decade, the Pentagon's spending has averaged a growth rate of 7 percent a year, adjusted for inflation, including the costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. But that rate is expected to slow to 1 percent as the wars wind down.

Money saved in cutting overhead and other inefficient costs on weapons programs will go toward modernizing and recapitalizing military equipment and sustaining troops, Pentagon officials said.

Read the whole story: Washington Post

Comments

[getoffmedz]

01:50 PM on 09/15/2010

Here's a tip Secretary Gates - there are no less than 737 military bases, worldwide.

How many of these installations are really essential?

[Fred Hood]

11:53 AM on 09/15/2010

start here

The lives of our children
3 trillion for a war no one wins
547 million P.R. money to sell us on the war
100 million security contract in Afghanistan to XE aka backwater
780 billion a year on an overblown wasteful military
8 billion for a missile defense system in Israel
3 billion to Mexico for cannabis eradication
27 billion to our mercenary army
51 billion to military no bid contracts
6 billion to backwater to train cops in Iraq
20 billion to corporate farms for growing corn
100 billion war on the poor (aka drug war)
700 billion to bail out banks and wall street
7.5 billion aid for Pakistan
500 million dollar planes that cannot fly in the rain
600 million this year for “The Mexicans are Attacking”
$$$$$ a navy eleven times the size of the next nation
$$$$$ spending more than the next 15 nations combined on military

Added caffeineod:
9 billion to Israel so they can have national health care
7 billion to Egypt to not attack Israel
7 billion to Jordan for the same reason

Added miasmom
9 billion CASH sent to Iraq cannot be accounted for

Added tony wise
1.5 billion for a new embassy in Iraq
1.2 billion over five years to boost Yemen's security forces

Added SirRealDeal
60 billion training and supporting Afghan troops

[OrleyHuxwell]

11:14 AM on 09/15/2010

WAR: what is it good for?

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

Real or imaginary; theirs or ours; justified or criminal; it's ALL about the money and profit generated.

[hotjobs1121]

10:59 AM on 09/15/2010

She has only one way to go: doom

[doctorkosan]

10:56 AM on 09/15/2010

The Defense budget is likely the most bloated of all the USA spending areas. It is wasteful to be involved in unnecessary wars and to maintain a ludicrous number of military bases overseas. The weapons procurement programs also suck as reflected in the old $500 hammer example that is all too real.
It is time for the USA to stop spending more on "defense" than the rest of the world combined and time for us to stop being the only cop of the world.

[GranE]

10:30 AM on 09/15/2010

That is not enough cuts. With our current budget at almost $700 BILLION, its only a small jump to $1 TRILLION dollars per year. Hey! Counting all the women and children there's only 301 MILLION of us to pay for that. Do the math and quit borrowing.

Gates needs to change the way the Pentagon operates on contracting. They go out for bids on a barebones project and get money appropriated from Congress, then they pull up a chair at the military contractor's project office and start adding bells and whistles. When the override gets so high it starts getting attention the Congressman/woman drags home an earmark and stays in office. Don't blame the contractors, blame the Pentagon and Congress for letting that happen.

Its a con game using our taxpayer dollars. Yes, what's new?

[tacevad]

10:17 AM on 09/15/2010

if only they were indeed Defense Cuts! this is shuffling resources pure and simple.

[mtgurl]

10:02 AM on 09/15/2010

How about combining all the military into one budget instead of having so many branches? It'd be a good start!

[CDRUSNret]

11:03 AM on 09/15/2010

The total DoD budget is a single appropriation.

[mtgurl]

04:56 PM on 09/15/2010

Yes, but each branch could coordinate more with their spending... i.e. when we were first in Iraq the Marines couldn't talk to the Air Force because they each had different radios. That kind of stuff is doesn't make sense.

[Kevin Atlanta]

09:47 AM on 09/15/2010

Here's a novel idea:
END THE GLOBAL OCCUPATION BY THE TERRORIST NATION OF THE USA.

That's a good start.

Why do we have 190 bases around the Earth?
Why are we occupying AfPak except to guard Opium Poppies for the Oligarchy.
The Iraq "war" was for oil and that went to the French; so much for "pay for its self" from Rumsfeld.

The clear intent is the Oligarchy wants the Military as the Middle Class and everyone else slaves.

End the wars, end the prosperity vacuum of American Terrorism.

[OgreDaddy]

09:23 AM on 09/15/2010

Now we're are selling state of the art weaponry to the UAE,
which in turn makes Israel nervous, so they too are building up
their weapons cache. We're just feeding the monster on both sides
apparently not caring who we sell to as long as we can keep selling the toys
that go boom.

[den1953]

11:26 AM on 09/15/2010

That would be my idea of war profits don't get our men and women involved just buy our weapons and make the check out the the USA, that way no extra tax payer burden to clean up afterwards!

[EndTheGOP]

09:21 AM on 09/15/2010

Here's a thought, maybe we can close half of our 700 military bases around the world. You man enough to work with that one, Mr, Gates?

[oxygen]

09:12 AM on 09/15/2010

this man is a civilian ! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSeuLsNV4CA

[CDRUSNret]

11:05 AM on 09/15/2010

nothing new here...every SECDEF has been a civilian.

[oxygen]

11:33 AM on 09/15/2010

franti for secretary of defense and not offense

[OgreDaddy]

09:05 AM on 09/15/2010

How secure are we when so many jobs depend on perpetual fear?

[den1953]

08:59 AM on 09/15/2010

Let me be the first to lay out a new foreign policy issue when two nations decide they want war supply the both of them weapons and supplies let them battle to the end and collect the profits that is all!

[OrleyHuxwell]

11:12 AM on 09/15/2010

Hasn't that been our MO for decades?

[den1953]

11:23 AM on 09/15/2010

No the leaders of that military War Inc seem to always include our nations soldiers with the equipment and that means death and injury to fellow Americans!

[Dredd]

08:53 AM on 09/15/2010

The entitlements of the military are primarily spent overseas in foreign nation building, while the entitlements for poor Americans are primarily spent at home in the USA.

We spend more on the military that the rest of the nations combined.

http://blogdredd.blogspot.com/2010/09/cut-greatest-entitlements-now.html

[debanes]

01:26 PM on 09/15/2010

Your post is not correct.

In dollar amounts, in 2007, the U.S. Spent more on defense than the combined defense investments of China, France, UK, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Germany, Japan, and Australia, not the rest of the nations combined.

As a % of GDP, the US spent 3.9% about the same as China and Russia, and way less than Israel (7.3%), the Saudis (10.5%), Jordan (11.5%), and North Korea (30%).

GDP is widely considered a more relative measure to a nation's wealth. Folks who criticize defense spending usually use $ amounts to make their points, folks who advocate defense spending usually use % of GDP to make theirs.

The entitlements of the military are not primarily spent overseas in nation building. I've looked at the defense budget several times and can't figure out where you're getting that. I'd be interested in seeing a legitimate source.