Posted on 07/31/2011 10:12:50 PM PDT by Steelfish
Will the Debt Ceiling Deal Gut Defense? JUL 31, 2011 WILLIAM KRISTOL
Members of Congress and their staff who know and care about defense are somewhere between alarmed and panicked at the emerging shape of the debt ceiling deal. (Consider this amazing on-the-record statement by Senator Joe Lieberman’s communications director to Jennifer Rubin just a few minutes ago: “Senator Lieberman is very concerned about rumors that the debt agreement now being negotiated will disproportionately cut defense spending and result in unacceptably high risk to our national security.”)
One of the great virtues of the Boehner bill that passed the House is that it more or less protects defense from further immediate cuts, and, since it has no trigger, there’s no presumption of future cuts either. Now defense is on the chopping block. The negotiations are moving away from Boehner toward Reid in terms of immediate defense cuts—and the trigger mechanism that’s being discussed could produce massive defense cuts in the out years.
As one well plugged-in observer put it to me, in the talks right now, on defense, it’s now four against one on defense—Obama, Reid, Pelosi, and McConnell are all more or less happy to use defense as a cash cow
(Excerpt) Read more at weeklystandard.com ...
Pick one to “gut”:
Social Security
Medicare/Medicaid
Military
Nothing else comes close to the financial expense of the above.
Baloney. There will be no cuts in defense. By the time the actual cuts would take effect there will be a new pres and a new congress that will make the necessary adjustments.
What do you want a bet NPR and National Funding for the Arts survives this with no cuts at all - when they should be the first to go.
Out of NATO, out of Korea and out of Ahghanistan. Oh out of the UN too.
That should save some money. If they want to put troops on some border how about our border with Mexico.
I certainly don’t want to see Defense gutted, but I’m fine with closing a few bases around the world if it will help get us out of this hole. That’s not to say I prefer base closings over other things. If we can find the money elsewhere in wasted government agencies (obviously redundant), then they should be cut first.
Kristol is out of his freaking mind.
The military needs to be “gutted” by 30% just to return to pre Iraq invasion percentage of GDP.
Bush didn’t use his veto pen for 5.5 years, and Obama hasn’t tried to minimize the DoD budget at even token levels so far.
At current rates of annual increases, the DoD will cost 20% of the entire FEderal budget within 20 years.
The GOP caved.
If they pass this deal, they get to cave twice when the debt commission proposes tax hikes.
You are probably right. The whole thing is just insane.
Remember when the GOP was going to take us back to the 2008 spending levels? When was that maybe 3 mos ago? Or remember When Boehner was crowing about how there would have to be huge cuts. Trillions don’t you know. After all this Kybuki theatre it appears to my untrained eye that the GOP is basically just giving Barky his clean debt ceiling increase. They have just wrapped it up in some lies to keep the proletariat (thats us) in line for the 2012 election.
We could cut 20% of the defense budget and have a better military for it, if we cut the right things. The problem is that politics or entrenched interests often trumps military needs or desires. The money is there. It’s just a question of who does the cutting; a skilled surgeon or an axe wielding lunatic.
Paul Ryan suggests that, if triggered, and if no cuts were implemented elsewhere, then the defense cut could be $500 billion over nine years, starting in FY2013.
In the compromise, they kept Reid's firewall, but they defined the idea of "security" spending more broadly so that it didn't hit the Pentagon budget quite as hard. Under the Reid plan, "security" only included the Department of Defense and Veterans' Affairs. Republicans assumed Democrats wouldn't actually cut veterans' benefits, so that effectively all of the cuts would come from defense. The new "security" category, however, also includes foreign aid, Homeland Security, and additional parts of the budget, meaning the cuts won't fall as heavily on defense. At this time, there are no estimates as to how this translates in dollar terms. A spokesman from the House Armed Services Committee says they are still "examining the details and exploring how they will impact defense."
And just to be clear, this only applies to the first round of cuts, which will accompany the initial debt limit increase. This shouldn't be confused with the defense cuts that could be triggered if the joint Congressional committee to find another round of cuts cannot come to an agreement.
50 Percent of Sequestration Will Come From Defense. If across-the-board cuts are triggered, 50 percent will come from defense spending (Function 050), with the remaining 50 percent coming from non-defense spending. The spending cuts would apply to fiscal years 2013-2021, and apply to both discretionary and mandatory spending programs with important exemptions. The amount of the defense spending cuts each year would be approximately $50 billion if sequestration is triggered.
The first tranche of cuts will come in at nearly $1 trillion. That includes savings of $350 billion from the Base Defense Budget, which will be trimmed based off a review of overall U.S. national security policy.
Please specify where these 20% cuts in defense are possible.
I would even return to two services: Army and Navy. We fought WWII without a separate Air Force, and the Civil War practically took place without the Marine Corps. There are military things that can be cut, mostly in the high ranking paper pushing end of things.
We still have an Industrial Age force structure with large sections that are obsolete, redundant or unused. Army Finance? Gone. Artillery? Gone. Air Defense Artillery? Gone. Much of logistics and intel are done by contractors. Those military jobs can be cut to supervisory levels, letting the government buy the services they need. Army cooks largely don't cook anymore, they run headcount to ensure contractors are billing correctly. Put the bodies in jobs that can't be outsourced. Infantry, armor, etc. Downsize the rest. The whole structure is schizophrenic, with far too much redundant tail and far too little tooth. Keep the job areas that require unique institutional knowledge, and know where to get what can't be kept on hand.
As an example, we've got cabbies working as interpreters. No way we can keep all the languages we'd ever need on hand in warfighting numbers. We don't need to. We just need to know how to pull that expertise out of the general public when needed, manage it correctly, and ensure we're getting what we pay for. Sounds easy, but the linguist copanies field interpreters that can't speak worth a damn, or are too old or infirm to do the job. Yet they make millions, robbing us blind, until we go to another company, which, before long, is robbing us blind using the same tactics.
Next, carve away the insane leadership bloat that exists in the upper ranks. We have more generals now than in WWII. Our officer corps are simply out of control, doing ridiculous, unnecessary functions or simply trying to win inter-service rivalries at the numbers game. Officers and senior NCOs, with rare exceptions, are utterly interchangeable and largely self-licking ice cream cones.
You could cut the 150 billion annual personnel bill down to 120 billion faster than you can imagine.
Operations and maintenance is pretty much keeping contracts and contractors under control. As a former contractor, I can assure you that you can carve 20% out of those budgets, and the only thing you'd be hurting is the McMansion industry around the beltway in DC. Train the government and military supervisors to stop being penny wise and pound foolish, and you'll see results. The military and government is fatally dependent on contract labor and expertise, which means they often are willing to turn a blind eye to problems they don't understand or are afraid will rock the boat. Most of them figure it's easier to just throw checks at the problem, or let yourself get overcharged. Once you train them out of that reflex, you'd have a better handle on controlling costs.
That's a gross oversimplification, but as a shorthand bullet point, it's serviceable. I'd write a book on this subject, were my particular field of expertise unclassifeid. Unfortunately, all I can do is bite my tongue.
I don't know as much about R&D and the deeper development and procurement process, but, again, I'm sure someone out there can crack the code on cutting waste there, too. That's my short answer; hope it was somewhat helpful.
The easiest way to reduce our military budget is to reduce our military commitments. For every commitment comes with a price tag.
Iraq costs money.
Afganistan costs money.
Libya costs money.
NATO costs money.
Bases in Europe and Japan cost money.
Korea costs money.
You can’t simply say ‘cut spend’ in the military unless you are willing to let military actually costthose things that COST MONEY.
I don’t know about you... but our operations and maintenance personnel are all military (except for one small cell of contractors, of which comes to about 6 civiians). And they do all our own repairs and installation of equipment.
That, and all our linguists are military as well. No contractors.
The only reason we’ve gone to contractors in the military is because our force structure was reduced to the point that our military no longer actually had the bodies necessary to do all the things we were tasked to do.
What if they gave a war and nobody payed for it?
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