To answer the question, no, the DoD should not be exempt. In fact, the DoD is the only Federal agency that has been cut in real dollars in the past several years. Not "baseline budget" gimmick cuts either - real cuts. Thousands of jobs were lost, hundreds of thousands of soldiers, sailors, marines, and airmen are going to be thrown out of the service that they scarificed and sometimes literally bled for.
That in itself is an obscenity.
Can the DoD be cut even more. Yes, but not this way. Not with Sequestration. It is the worst possible approach for the military.
Moreover, it is a Constitutional institution. Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, Food Stamps, TANF (all of which are exempt from Sequestration) are not Constitutional.
I understand the anger towards the government. Every time a obese TSA agent with the IQ of 65 touches a member of my family at an airport, I weep for what this country has become.
However, there are also the noble. There are DoD teachers, nurses, logisticians, machinists, electricians, dog handlers, engineers, and truck drivers who are loyal, patriotic, hard working Americans who are hurt by this process.
Read this - it is true.
http://freerepublic.com/focus/news/2992388/posts?page=40#40
Every time you mock and scoff, you mock and scoff the likes of her. She isn't ficticious.
Think about it more before you post.
See here:
http://www.businessinsider.com/2012-us-defense-budget-largest-since-world-war-ii-2011-7
The FY 2012 budget requests a total of $676 billion for the Department of Defense (DoD).
The base budget for DoD includes $553 billion in discretionary funding and $5 billion in mandatory funding, and an additional $118 billion is requested for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The budget request also includes $19 billion for defense-related atomic energy programs and $8 billion for defense-related activities in other agencies, bringing the total national defense budget to $703 billion.
Adjusting for inflation, the level of funding proposed for the base defense budget in the FY 2012 request is the highest level since World War II, surpassing the Cold War peak of $531 billion (in FY 2012 dollars) reached in FY 1985.
So, Defense has a budget of nearly $676 Billion dollars.
Sequester for this fiscal year is a mere $44 Billion ( because much of the months for this fiscal year have already gone ).
Of the $44 Billion, HALF is defense cuts, which comes out to $22 Billion.
If you subtract that from $676 Billion, that’s still $654 Billion dollars. GREATER THAN the 20 most powerful military in the world combined!
Don’t tell me that the DoD cannot work with that number and has to cut to the bone and lay off all these good people you mentioned.... What about doing a serious accounting and cutting the FAT.
Every agency from top to bottom has to do it.
Now, if your main concern is that defense gets the BULK of the cuts compared to the other government departments, I get your point.
However, WE HAVE TO START SOMEWHERE.
We’re not going to even get a good start with a Democrat controlled Senate and this man in the White House.
If a good start means cutting a mere $22 Billion from a nearly $680 Billion budget ( because we have been dealt a lemon in November 2012 ), then so be it.
A really competent head would know how to find $22 Billion in waste to cut.
And as if to soothe your fears, The new Continuing Resolution will include a provision that restores $7 billion in funding for specific Pentagon accounts:
House Republicans are proposing this week to restore upward of $7 billion to operations and maintenance accounts for the four military services hit hard by the automatic cuts that went into effect Friday night.
That’s the bottom line driving a hybrid spending bill to be unveiled Monday and intended to replace the stopgap continuing resolution or CR due to expire March 27.
The measure will keep in place the overall spending reduction known as the sequester ordered Friday. But in the case of the Defense Department, it substitutes an updated full-year budget that shifts money to address the GOP’s great Achilles’ heel: the serious danger to military readiness if the standoff with President Barack Obama drags on for months.
Republicans know they can’t sustain a long fight without addressing this vulnerability, but the CR is also a political tinderbox that could blow up despite all sides now insisting that they want to avoid a government shutdown.
SEE HERE:
Now, the cuts for this fiscal year will be a mere $15 Billion. $15 billion is a mere 2.2% of $676 Billion.
Don’t tell me out of a nearly $676 Budget, they can’t find 2.2% in cuts....