I agree that the military should be the last of those to have cuts. We should take on Medicare and SSI first. But each of them are close to 20% of the budget. And each have waste. We need to be willing to cut some of the military budget in order to actual reign in federal spending.
If we took out 1/3 of Medicare and SSI, and 15% of defense, we would save 500 billion. I think that should be the plan for the next cycle (2012), assuming we have at least the House and either Senate or Pres.
And then, we should have a goal (as a movement) within the next 20 years to cut Medicare down to 1/2 and private half of the remaining SSI, while cutting defense another 10%. This would cut an extra 350 billion. If we can get 850 billion cut within the next 25 years, I think that is the plan to work towards. That would result in 1/2 current Medicare, 1/3 of current SSI, and 3/4 of current Defense. Hopefully we will be out of Irag and Afghanistan by then, so that will be a large chunk of defense. And I think it will be palatable to cut Medicare and SSI with some moderates if we take some of the top off Defense as well.
We already have. It's the prime function of government. We should not further endanger the country to preserve a little more of the unconstitutional spending. But yes, we might be able to cut some of the money, most of of it, we've been spending on day to day operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. But we've already eaten some of the seed corn to fund those efforts, so we need at least some of that "savings" to go into R&D. Or at least procurement, because many systems are getting old, and need replacement with the latest designs, even if we don't ramp up R&D at all. The supplies of expendables have been drawn down as well. Including a bunch of cruise missile pissed away in Libya.