Cut Defense Spending 40%

[yellowtail3]

The Col. makes a good argument, WELL WORTH READING. 

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/04/26/lean_mean_fighting_machine

Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft, said it best, "When waves of change appear, you can duck under the wave, stand fast against the wave, or, better yet, surf the wave." Today, the same tsunami-like wave of debt that threatens to sweep away American economic prosperity is headed for America's defense establishment. President Barack Obama signaled as much with his April 13 budget address, in which he warned: "Just as we must find more savings in domestic programs, we must do the same in defense."
Obama gave no specifics, promising instead to work with the Pentagon to "conduct a fundamental review of America's missions, capabilities, and our role in a changing world." But given the poor track record such reviews have -- both Quadrennial Defense Reviews and Roles and Missions Commissions -- and Obama's failure to even address the need to reduce defense spending, the president's words don't deserve to be taken seriously at all. Meanwhile, the Republican failure to take on defense spending -- the 800-pound gorilla in the room -- means the political discourse that House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and his colleagues seek may degenerate into pointless shouting matches with Capitol Hill's Democrats.

For one thing, there is no existential military threat to the United States or to its vital strategic interests. The nuclear arsenals in Russia and China could be used against the United States and its forces, but Russian and Chinese leaders have no incentive to contemplate suicide in a nuclear confrontation with the United States. Russia's diminished million-man armed forces are hard-pressed to modernize, let alone secure their own country, which borders 14 other states. For all its rhetoric, Russia's military focus is on restive Muslim populations in the Caucasus and Central Asia, not on NATO.

and

As for China, its top concern is not military confrontation with the United States, but domestic growing pains, especially the potential for its 1.3 billion people to overwhelm the Communist Party's internal political structures. China's internal focus on modernization and stability militates against external aggression, and this condition is unlikely to change for a very long time. Despite China's ability to steal or buy sophisticated technology, the military establishment cannot quickly or easily translate these technologies into new capabilities, and Beijing knows it.

Here's the real meat: http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/04/26/a_radical_plan_for_cutting_the_defense_budget_and_reconfiguring_the_us_military

We've had a WW2 military for what... sixty-plus years???

[Shu]

Are you crazy???!!!!? How else can we meddle in another soveriegn nations affairs!

The problem with cutting a budget is, someone in government will find a way to waste that money faster than anything and even though 40% was saved they will waste twice that on something no one wants. You know like giving money to countrys that hate us.

[magooch]

I think a good place to start cutting the military is at the top.  Cut the Commander-in-Chief's budget by 40%.  Ground his private air force.

[powderman]

I'd love to see all of congress pay cut by 40%. POWDERMAN. 

[MGMorden]

I'd love to see all of congress pay cut by 40%. POWDERMAN. 

That's all well and good, but realistically their pay checks are such an insignificant fraction of the total budget that it wouldn't make any difference.  I doubt many of them would even care that much - being a politician isn't about the paycheck, it's about power (and the "extracuricular" funds that such power can bring in from lobbyists).  The vast majority of these people are worth a ton more than their government salary would allow.  Heck just look at the president: the office is still salaried at $200,000 per year, while pretty much every man whose held the office in the last 100 years could find $200k in between his couch cushions and not care.

To often talk of budget cuts ends up along this emotional path, rather than looking at where serious money is actually being spent.  Want to fix the budget?  Two areas stick out: Social welfare and defense.  Cut both of those - significantly - and you'll see the spending come under control.  Everything else is peanuts.

[PA-Joe]

Cut one military base in each state and see what happns!

[SHOOTALL]

We could ask other countries that have U S military bases in there lands to pay for the protection we afford them and also the jobs we bring to their economy . We could combine our bases but then we would have learned little at Pearl Harbor  . We could also require a years service from all Americans after high school. We could create a home guard made up of all wanting to serve , no pay but good training etc maybe a tax break. We are Americans we should take back the defence of our nation to some degree from govt. like in the early years of our freedom. I don't advocate breaking laws just shouldering the burden more .

[no guns here]

President is at $400,000/yr since about 2001.  VP is in the $230K range.


NGH

[MGMorden]

President is at $400,000/yr since about 2001.  VP is in the $230K range.


NGH

My apologies - I didn't know it had been increased.  Still, there hasn't been a President in recently history with a net worth less than $5 million, so the salary is still not a huge incentive.  As I said, the draw is more about power and the money they can make THROUGH that power than through the direct salary.

If you dropped the presidential salary to ZERO there would still be the same campaigning and dueling for the position that there has always been.

[SHOOTALL]

Better check Bill Clintions wealth before the first election .....

[OldSchoolRanger]

I'd love to see all of congress pay cut by 40%. POWDERMAN. 

That's all well and good, but realistically their pay checks are such an insignificant fraction of the total budget that it wouldn't make any difference.  I doubt many of them would even care that much - being a politician isn't about the paycheck, it's about power (and the "extracuricular" funds that such power can bring in from lobbyists).  The vast majority of these people are worth a ton more than their government salary would allow.  Heck just look at the president: the office is still salaried at $200,000 per year, while pretty much every man whose held the office in the last 100 years could find $200k in between his couch cushions and not care.

To often talk of budget cuts ends up along this emotional path, rather than looking at where serious money is actually being spent.  Want to fix the budget?  Two areas stick out: Social welfare and defense.  Cut both of those - significantly - and you'll see the spending come under control.  Everything else is peanuts.

I agree with the need for cuts in Social welfare, defense not so much. 
Congressional pensions and benefits for our duly elected  representatives account for untold millions in waste. 
One of the perks, include serving one term as a Representative or Senator, qualifies you  to 100% of your salary as a pension, not to mention free health care for the rest of your life.  Don't you wish you had a job like that?
Serve as a congressional aide, making a salary of up to $168,000 a year, and you are entitled to government subsidies to pay off your student loans. How about this benefit for your kids college loans?

http://soundofcannons.blogspot.com/2009/09/congress-approves-bonuses-for-their.html

It's "little things like this, not including congress yearly free fact finding (vacations) abroad paid for by you and me that add up.

If you dropped those two congressional perks, let alone reduce the salary, I doubt my Senator Chuckie (use the same speech at every graduation ceremony) Schumer would be one of them.  The man and his wife never had a real job in their entire life.  They've been on the public dole since they got out of college. 

[yellowtail3]

the reasons to cut defense are legion, but here are two very good ones:

1. THAT'S WHERE THE MONEY IS
2. We don't need to spend what we spend, and spending it puts us in places we ought not be

[Pat/Rick]

 Couple that with stopping ALL foreign aid and we wouldn't be so broke.

the reasons to cut defense are legion, but here are two very good ones:

1. THAT'S WHERE THE MONEY IS
2. We don't need to spend what we spend, and spending it puts us in places we ought not be

Yep. As much as I AM for a strong military,and PRO active defense, isn't a decade in a war zone going backwards?? Although, worth it when news like obl is taken out. Yes I'd rather be there than have it here, but.........isn't what were fighting coming in the back door?

[yellowtail3]

Couple that with stopping ALL foreign aid and we wouldn't be so broke.

the reasons to cut defense are legion, but here are two very good ones:
1. THAT'S WHERE THE MONEY IS
2. We don't need to spend what we spend, and spending it puts us in places we ought not be

Yep. As much as I AM for a strong military,and PRO active defense, isn't a decade in a war zone going backwards?? Although, worth it when news like obl is taken out. Yes I'd rather be there than have it here, but.........isn't what were fighting coming in the back door?

we spend a fortune on military to do everything everywhere. We've got more navy than the rest of the world combined. We're been on a WW2/Cold War footing forever, seems. People forget that used to be, you didn't keep a wartime military around forever. We have, since the 40s.

seriously - read the article I posted. Well stated. The longer 2nd article is better.

On foreign aid - examine it. Some of it is well worth spending, some not. It's all a PITTANCE compared to what we spend on the military.

[Cabin4]

Stop the stupid foreign wars and bring all our troops home from all the foreign bases. Whatever that gets us in reduced spending would be a great start.

[SHOOTALL]

Stop the stupid foreign wars and bring all our troops home from all the foreign bases. Whatever that gets us in reduced spending would be a great start.

Sounds good ! maybe protect our borders instead of every ones elses for a change. Let the Navy run the ocean to show power.

[magooch]

I'd love to see all of congress pay cut by 40%. POWDERMAN. 

That's all well and good, but realistically their pay checks are such an insignificant fraction of the total budget that it wouldn't make any difference.  I doubt many of them would even care that much - being a politician isn't about the paycheck, it's about power (and the "extracuricular" funds that such power can bring in from lobbyists).  The vast majority of these people are worth a ton more than their government salary would allow.  Heck just look at the president: the office is still salaried at $200,000 per year, while pretty much every man whose held the office in the last 100 years could find $200k in between his couch cushions and not care.

To often talk of budget cuts ends up along this emotional path, rather than looking at where serious money is actually being spent.  Want to fix the budget?  Two areas stick out: Social welfare and defense.  Cut both of those - significantly - and you'll see the spending come under control.  Everything else is peanuts.

I agree with the need for cuts in Social welfare, defense not so much. 
Congressional pensions and benefits for our duly elected  representatives account for untold millions in waste. 
One of the perks, include serving one term as a Representative or Senator, qualifies you  to 100% of your salary as a pension, not to mention free health care for the rest of your life.  Don't you wish you had a job like that?
Serve as a congressional aide, making a salary of up to $168,000 a year, and you are entitled to government subsidies to pay off your student loans. How about this benefit for your kids college loans?

http://soundofcannons.blogspot.com/2009/09/congress-approves-bonuses-for-their.html

It's "little things like this, not including congress yearly free fact finding (vacations) abroad paid for by you and me that add up.

If you dropped those two congressional perks, let alone reduce the salary, I doubt my Senator Chuckie (use the same speech at every graduation ceremony) Schumer would be one of them.  The man and his wife never had a real job in their entire life.  They've been on the public dole since they got out of college. 

You need to check your facts.  I'm pretty sure that is wrong about Congress critters getting 100% pensions after only one term.

[Pat/Rick]

Couple that with stopping ALL foreign aid and we wouldn't be so broke.

the reasons to cut defense are legion, but here are two very good ones:
1. THAT'S WHERE THE MONEY IS
2. We don't need to spend what we spend, and spending it puts us in places we ought not be

Yep. As much as I AM for a strong military,and PRO active defense, isn't a decade in a war zone going backwards?? Although, worth it when news like obl is taken out. Yes I'd rather be there than have it here, but.........isn't what were fighting coming in the back door?

we spend a fortune on military to do everything everywhere. We've got more navy than the rest of the world combined. We're been on a WW2/Cold War footing forever, seems. People forget that used to be, you didn't keep a wartime military around forever. We have, since the 40s.

seriously - read the article I posted. Well stated. The longer 2nd article is better.

On foreign aid - examine it. Some of it is well worth spending, some not. It's all a PITTANCE compared to what we spend on the military.

I did read it. I also view u.n. generated wars as foreign aid. It needs to be stopped IMO. Also IMO foreign aid should be reserved for emergencies like natural disasters. 

Stop the stupid foreign wars and bring all our troops home from all the foreign bases. Whatever that gets us in reduced spending would be a great start.

+1 Cabin. There is no need to have our troops outside of our nation or its territories. If a problem has to be dealt with immediatly, we have a sub fleet that can be most anywhere. I am all for  naval patrols in int'l waters. And I am for a military presence on our borders. Especially one as violent as our southern border.

[Conan The Librarian]

In agree. Cut it, and I think 40% is a good figure. In 1939 the US military was smaller than the military of Portugal. It was also smaller than the military of Greece. Believe it or not, it was true. Is this gigantic spending really buying any deterrence?

[us920669]

My father was an engineer at Ft Belvoir Virginia from 1942 to 1975.  He used to talk about how hard they tried to save money back in the old days - sharpened their pencils down to stubs, turned out the lights, etc.  It started to change during the Johnson era and really got bad under Nixon, but it wasn't the presidents as much as congress.  There is a systemic or structural problem - the more you spend the more you get.  Fixing it will be a lot harder than closing a few bases or consolidating commands. 

[yellowtail3]

Fixing it will be a lot harder than closing a few bases or consolidating commands.

It surely will be. Much of the military-industrial complex is a jobs program, zealously protected by legislators. But it needs to be done.

Much opposition will come from those who equate military spending - and sometimes, plain jingoistic militarism - with patriotism. I used to do that, back in the early 80s. Guilty.

Still, it needs to be done. Standby for the sacred cows to screech.

[Conan The Librarian]

Three frigging pointless wars in the middle east is jobs program too. And more dangerous than coal mining. Cannon fodder!

[Winter Hawk]

+1 for getting out of foreign wars.  In Afghanistan we should have done like we did with the first Iraq war - gone in, kicked a$$ and got out.  They screwed up letting Bin Laden attack us from there, they can fix their own mess when it lands on them.  When we went into Iraq the second time I felt it was Bush Jr. wanting to give Bush Sr. a gift, since he had agreed not to go into Iraq for cooperation from the Saudis.  Even if Sadam Hussein had WMDs, we had no right to go into a sovereign country just because we didn't like what they were doing.  Now we and our kids get to pay for this military adventurism.  We need to get out and keep from meddling in other countries' internal affairs.

And we need to get the draft back.  When Nixon ended it I was against it.  Two years of service to our country in exchange for all the rights and privileges we have is not bad.  It also teaches kids that those rights & privileges come with responsibilities.

How do I get off this soap box?

-WH-

[magooch]

Going back to the draft would be just exactly the wrong thing to do.  The modern day military is much more technical than in years past.  We don't need just a bunch of bodies, we need the best and brightest to be highly trained and we need to pay these people enough to keep them in the service.  A two year stint in the military is hardly enough time to train them and then they leave?

If anything, the military should raise its standards and pay to the point that a military position would be coveted and respected.  That's not to say that I don't already respect our great troops.  I get very emotional everytime I see one of these great guys in uniform.  What they need more than anything is a real CIC.

[Conan The Librarian]

This begs the question of what the realistic expectation of recruiting people is in a world where the best and brightest have a lot of better options.

[Spirithawk]

Makes perfect sense.  Cut the budget for the military while spreading them thinly across the world. Gee, why not just disolve the military completely and put out the doormat welcoming our enemies. Then we'd have no need for saving pennies except to put on our eyes as our enemies bury us!

[Shu]

Think for a moment how much of our techonolgy that we enjoy everyday was developed for the military or by the military industrial complex. Medicine alone was one of the biggest benefactors of all that defense spending.

Bringing home lets say 500,000 troops and discharging them into the States with no jobs available, is this really what is needed right now? 

[SHOOTALL]

not to mention the industry needed to feed , cloth etc those 500000 troops

[wreckhog]

Retiring 500,000 troops might create the next financial boom, or it might create a national crime wave. Both have happened historically in the US.

[yellowtail3]

Makes perfect sense. 

Read as written, it does indeed

Cut the budget for the military while spreading them thinly across the world.

Did you read the article? Part of the idea is to STOP spreading them thin (or otherwise) across the world.

Gee, why not just disolve the military completely and put out the doormat welcoming our enemies.

An odd prescription, one not offered by the author of the articles I linked.