Will the Debt Ceiling Deal Gut Defense?

I think you're exactly on point with the base issue. We've got footprint all over the place, and that costs money like crazy. That's another point that could be reduced for large, long term savings. The Norks can have South Korea for all I care.

I worked as a linguist since the early days of the Clinton era, up until recently. I've trained hundreds, and oversaw the training of thousands. Most of them are not doing linguist work, though. I'm a Mandarin speaker, and that never really came up in any country I ever visited on Uncle Sam's behalf. (Except China, but that's another story.) My first work with contractors was done showing up in countries where I needed to work, but didn't speak whatever they did locally. The military just buys you the service you need, and when the mission is done, you go back, and the contractor goes home or to another team.

At any rate, if you have mostly or all military linguists, that's exceptionally rare, and an indication that the target language is not their primary mission. They're probably analysts or EW equipment operators. (or on a ship, I should caveat). Any major intel collection, be it NSA to a local site, will have a major contractor presence providing the mid-to-high end talent.

As far as gear, t six guys you have on hehand are supported by a vast tail that's all coming out of the Operations and Maintainence budget. Most military technicians these days are box swappers. Pull out component X, plug in a new component X. That's an efficient way to do business if you can afford it, but at the end of the day, you're dealing with proprietary systems that the military doesn't have the expertise to repair. It's not about not having the manpower, it's just a question of efficiency. Train a military technician too well, and he'll just go work for the OEM company instead. Same problem, ironically, with military linguists.

Even if we had a gigantic WWII era military, there's many jobs, like washing pans on major bases, that aren't cost effective to use soldiers. Others, like repairing complex electronis, are better done by actual company technicians. Even tactial training for deploying special operations and maneuver units is often managed by companies like Gryphon Group, Armor Group, Blackwater or a host of others. Soldiering is simply too complicated to be left to the military anymore. That's just the evolution of warfare, but it dosen't mean we have to get ripped off for services we pay for.

Gut the first two. Completely

For military, withdraw from the Libyan war, withdraw troops from Western Europe. The navy I think should be reduced -- wait, before you flame me, let me give my reasons -- the US Navy right now can take on ALL of the rest of the world's navies and defeat them easily -- we have more aircraft carriers, subs etc. than the next 10 or more navies and all are more advanced.

We can reduce this to be able to obliterate the Chinese twice or thrice over and still save a lot of money (the Chinese navy right now could be licked by India's or Japan's -- just the navy mind you, while the Russian navy is rusting away to pieces)

The air-force, Marines and Army budget can't be cut, they are too important.

Inessential employees and pensioners of the various levels of civilian government steal far more than that. Either fire many of them now, or many more of them will be fired in the near future.

There's a difference between an nonessential employee and a crook. A nonessential employee in government doesn't steal any more than a nonessential employee foolishly hired by a private firm. In both cases the fault lies with the people deciding the hiring, not the person filling the slot others created.

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