He had his time, now he is just a has-been politician trying to say something relevant and failing. We need to strengthen our military, not gut it. I guess he thinks he is brilliant with his pentagon to triangle comparison.
A day late and a dollar short.
I spent quite a few thousand days in uniform, am not a Gingrich fan by any means, and I still agree with him here.
The DOD upper echelon is fat with pork, waste, and redundancy.
Don’t rock the boat?
To Gingrich, this “paper-based” bureaucracy creates too many levels of hierarchy, slows the process down and increases the overall cost of running the Pentagon. His solution is to cut this bureaucracy down and appropriate the saved money to combat troops and combat equipment, thus transforming the Pentagon into a “triangle.”
What, exactly, is wrong with that?
Had his chance. Blew it. Now go away.
Just make it a cicle, complete with the jerks in the White House.
Just a reminder that Gingrich actually CUT the budget deficit and debt while in office. This is what’s wrong with America today, everybody bitches but won’t vote for the ones to fix it. As it is, I will vote for Cruz, but if Newt runs again, he will get a strong look from me. Almost anyone will tell you he always the smartest guy in the room, but for some reason we vote for a guy we want to have a beer with. Well, I’m trying to get the country fixed, not drink with politicians.
As a military retiree, here’s my take: there is room to trim the Pentagon budget, but (invariably) the cuts come from the “tooth” and not the “tail.”
A few examples: the Army is getting rid of 10 combat brigades. Why? The brass will claim that “advances in technology” will allow us to get by with fewer trigger-pullers, but Iraq and Afghanistan debunked that myth again. We got rid of 10 brigades because Obama and Co. mandated the cuts (can’t touch social programs)and combat units are manpower and resource intensive. Cut a brigade and there is a huge ripple effect in the support area as well. So, the reductions go even deeper, and so does the decrease in our combat power.
The Navy plans to “sideline” almost two dozen cruisers and destroyers for a few years, before modernizing them and bringing those ships back into the fleet. Does anyone with half a brain actually believe those vessels will ever return to service once they’ve been mothballed? And once again, the cuts are aimed at manpower-intensive systems (and combat capabilities). So far, the carriers have escaped the cuts, but if you reduce your cruiser and destroyer squadrons, it becomes a risker proposition to send the carriers into harm’s way.
A similar scenario is unfolding in the Air Force. To fund the F-35, large numbers of older aircraft will be retired. The A-10 dodged that bullet this year, but it’s a sure bet the same proposal will be made in 2016 (and every year beyond) until the Hawg is retired.
Never mind that the platform is more capable than ever, and the F-35 can carry only a fraction of the payload (but it is stealthy). And never mind the A-10 is optimal for the types of conflicts we will fight in the years ahead. The Air Force is so cash-strapped they will have to sideline the A-10 (along with significant numbers of F-15s and F-16s) to pay for the JSF—and hope there are no MRCs until the F-35 begins arriving in significant numbers.
The Marine Corps plan is similar to the Army’s; cut manpower-intensive units to preserve big-ticket items like the F-35. Some estimates show the Corps’ end strength dropping as low as 150,000 by the end of this decade; if that happens, it means one out of four active duty Marines will be pushed out.
All of this is lost on Mr. Gingrich. He thinks a clever speech line is a substitute for an effective national security strategy. Like a lot of his “ideas,” it’s very short of specifics.
Are you suggesting that there isn’t top heavy bloat in the military?
Cheap hawk is the kind who cuts veteran health for greed.
The Pentagon, like the Departments of State, Education, HHS, etc. has its own share of self-preserving bureaucrats that sometimes work counter to the constituency they are supposed to serve.
His solution is to cut this bureaucracy down and appropriate the saved money to combat troops and combat equipment, thus transforming the Pentagon into a “triangle.”
This USMC combat veteran says "Ooooh Rah!" to Newt.
One of the reasons that the Pentagon hasn't gone entirely paperless is because our infrastructure is vulnerable. What happens if an enemy knocks out the power or takes down communications if everything is stored electronically?
Gingrich’s Contract with America: The Power of Conservative Ideas
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9we5yBxGSjc&list=UU5bEfSFTYQVfLCwkhBt8NtQ
Jul 23, 2014
In 1994, after languishing in the minority for 40 years, the Republicans decided to stop being the me-too party. They took a principled conservative stand against the reigning liberal dogmas — and won big, taking control of Congress. Key to this victory was Newt Gingrich’s Contract with America, a conservative agenda that rallied Americans in favor of limited government and promised to reform the way Congress worked.