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Don’t Gut Our Military: $150 Billion in Commonsense Proposals to Prevent Sequestration
The Foundry - Heritage Foundation ^ | 28 Jan 13 | T. Elliot Gaiser

Posted on 01/28/2013 1:06:01 PM PST by SkyPilot

Unless Congress acts, March 1 will trigger a $55 billion-per-year ($45 billion in 2013, as the fiscal cliff deal delayed the cuts for two months) cut in national defense, known as sequestration, which will weaken the United States’s ability to defend itself. But this does not have to happen; Congress should cut other spending to prevent the debilitating cuts to defense.

National defense, unlike most other discretionary programs, is a central constitutional duty and today represents only 17 percent of the budget. Yet nearly half of the Congress-mandated sequestration cuts—$492 billion—would come from defense. These across-the-board cuts threaten our nation’s defense capability. (continues below chart)

------------------------- Congress could draw from $150 billion in commonsense proposals to find at least $55 billion in annual spending cuts to avoid a devastating impact on defense.

For instance, instead of slashing our ability to defend ourselves, Congress could:

•Phase out or cap current farm subsidies, saving $4.5 billion annually; •Eliminate Community Development Block Grants, many of which go to economically well-off communities that don’t need them, saving $3 billion annually; •Consolidate existing federal job training programs, saving $5 billion annually; •Reduce energy subsidies for commercialization, saving $4.5 billion annually; and •Rescind unspent funds from Obama’s ineffective stimulus bill, saving $31 billion. These are only five examples of the spending cuts proposed by Knudsen based on The Heritage Foundation’s Saving the American Dream plan.

In addition, billions of taxpayer dollars could be saved by taking steps to reduce as much as $115 billion in waste, fraud, and abuse in programs like the earned income tax credit, Medicare, and Medicaid.

(Excerpt) Read more at blog.heritage.org ...


TOPICS: Editorial; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: budget; defense; draft; military; sequestration; universalservice
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Great article by the Heritage Foundation, however, no one is listening.

Obama and the Democrats could care less, and the Republicans have decided to play a strategy that if they shoot the innocent hostage first, the criminal holding the hostage is left with a dead body, so there.

Congressman Paul Ryan appeared on Meet the Press with David "High Capacity Mag" Gregory, and referred to the Sequestration cuts in the past tense. In other words, this nation is screwed.

When all out war breaks out in the Korean peninsula, or between China and Japan, or between Israel and Syria, everyone in DC will shout to the military "Hey, do this! Do that! Fix this!"

The fact is, Obama already cut half a trillion from the US military's 10 year budget before the ill fated 2011 Budget Control Act. The $600 Billion Sequestration cuts are the coup de grâce.

Ancient Rome here we come. Enjoy your bread and circus.

1 posted on 01/28/2013 1:06:07 PM PST by SkyPilot
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To: SkyPilot

The US military budget is not about defending ourselves. It’s about ruling the world.


2 posted on 01/28/2013 1:08:48 PM PST by DManA
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To: SkyPilot
Entire Federal spending should be cut at least 50%, across the board, INCLUDING defense. Millions of acres of Federal lands should be sold to generate revenue to pay back Federal bonds owed to the Fed and the Chinese.

55 Billion is a JOKE. Obama spends that in less than a month.

3 posted on 01/28/2013 1:29:30 PM PST by backwoods-engineer ("Remember: Evil exists because good men don't kill the gov officials committing it." -- K. Hoffmann)
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To: SkyPilot

Let the sequestration happen. Sooner the better. We are going to get screwed anyway, so let’s hope it comes quick and MAYBE wakes up some of our fellow countrymen?


4 posted on 01/28/2013 1:39:15 PM PST by Wisconsinlady (The 2nd amendment is NOT about hunting-but protection from a tyrannical govt)
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To: SkyPilot
No one wants to have their sacred cow get cut. If these proposals were that simple they would have been worked on years ago.
5 posted on 01/28/2013 1:40:10 PM PST by KantianBurke (Where was the Tea Party when Dubya was spending like a drunken sailor?)
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To: DManA

it’s also about making a whole lot of people wealthy at taxpayer’s expense. Additionally, the US military is essentially under the control of the one worlders thus doing their bidding to eliminate dictators that do not want world government. It’s all part of the pre-orchastrated war on terror. As we sit and watch this regime in DC buying up ammo and arms in preparing to take military control of the streets of America, too many of us are foolishly hoping that OUR government would never do to us what history proves otherwise. genocide happens and there are many indicators exposing activities that this government is planning to make it happen in American. the millions of genocide victims also trusted that their government would never dare to murder them. This alone is the primary reason our founders inserted that the President has to be a natural born citizen. Obozo is not and the Founders concerns are now our reality.


6 posted on 01/28/2013 1:41:07 PM PST by drypowder
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To: SkyPilot
Speaking as a retired Army Reservist with a son and nephew currently on Active Duty, I’ll take any military cut. We need to take a meat axe to every Federal program. When I was in the USAR, we used to joke about the Army being the only welfare program with a retirement plan. -—No longer a joke -—It’s reality!
7 posted on 01/28/2013 1:51:33 PM PST by texican01
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To: SkyPilot

I seem to remember in one of the debates Obumster said sequestration would not happen...Oh wait... Obullenshiza never says what he means, or means what he says.


8 posted on 01/28/2013 2:13:38 PM PST by PoloSec ( Believe the Gospel: how that Christ died for our sins, was buried and rose again)
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To: SkyPilot

The differences are really between those in higher salaried positions and pensions of the various levels of government and government-connected (and foreign-connected) businesses and nearly everyone else (producers, technicians, others with incomes from present and past in the private sector). Because of the noisy propaganda, most of us simply don’t know it, yet.

In other words, the differences are between all who would be willing to produce and those regulating against and preventing production (including the misdirecting government education establishment). Our country needs much more production on its own soil. The current regime of chair-bound masters of the universe is not economically sustainable.

Look for a real technocracy in the future (leadership by the technically inclined), and not the kind of technocracy mislabeled by contemporary propagandists.


9 posted on 01/28/2013 3:20:55 PM PST by familyop (We Baby Boomers are croaking in an avalanche of rotten politics smelled around the planet.)
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To: DManA

Cutting 1/38th of the budget over 10 years,oh the horror!

Gays in the military , women in combat...this is the least of their worries.

Doesn’t the pentagon still have a global warming reduction program?


10 posted on 01/28/2013 5:00:48 PM PST by TurboZamboni (Looting the future to bribe the present)
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To: SkyPilot

Actually, I just saw an ad on Fox about our “shrinking military” and if it was dangerous...

It triggered something that jumped out at me. Democrats/liberals/progressives/obama need a crisis to do anything they want to accomplish.

In 2003 and 2006 the democrats proposed a draft. I recall the confrontation because the republicans forced it to the floor for a vote.

Flash forward to today. Cuts, cuts, cuts...Benghazi, Africa, Turkey, Syria...and we’re cutting military?

The 0bama Regime is cutting the military so they can then call for the draft. 0bama needs his reason to conscript the population...it is being manufactured.

” It is generally accepted within the political establishment that a larger military is necessary. Rangel’s comments have been prominently discussed in the media because they serve to legitimize discussion of the draft under conditions in which the US military is already overstretched, while at the same time there is ongoing discussion within the ruling elite on the need to increase the number of troops in Iraq and prepare for possible action against Iran. Rangel’s position is a trial balloon to gauge public reaction and condition public opinion for a move in this direction.

While the Democratic leadership immediately announced their opposition to Rangel’s proposal, there was been a lengthy discussion within the Democratic Party over the need for some form of universal service. Several books by Democratic strategists that came out before the election raised this need. Rangel made his statement as a deliberate and highly conscious introduction of this issue into political debate.” http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2006/11/drft-n21.html


11 posted on 02/01/2013 3:13:14 PM PST by EBH ( The 2nd Amendment exists for times like this.)
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To: EBH
You might have something there, but I think the reasons that Obama is gutting the military are much more straight forward:

1. He hates the idea of American prominence in the world, and he wants to weaken us so as to cede preeminence and power to China, Russia, and the Muslim Brotherhood

2. The military is an easy target for him to keep destroying financially so that he can fund more welfare and give away programs to those Americans who least deserve it

12 posted on 02/01/2013 3:20:35 PM PST by SkyPilot
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To: SkyPilot

Appearances...

Remember 0bama said in his first election campaign...about a force internally as strong as our military...He didn’t get that in the first term.

Recent questions if officers etc. would fire on American citizens...

0bama needs a reason for conscription. Take a look at the section I quoted ...there was been a lengthy discussion within the Democratic Party over the need for some form of universal service....

They are softening up the military to roll out a draft.

Congressman Charles Rangel, a Democrat (NY), introduced on 14 February 2006 a bill (HR 4752) in the US Congress which requires: “all persons in the United States, including women, between the ages of 18 and 42 to perform a [two year] period of military service or a period of civilian service in furtherance of the national defense and homeland security, and for other purposes.”

The bill applies to both US citizens and non-citizens, to men and women. There does not appear to be a provision which would exempt women who are pregnant and/or caring for infants/children in a young age. The bill also supports Big Brother. Those who are not sent overseas to the war theater would, according to the clauses of the bill, be inducted into the civilian homeland defense corps and other civilian duties, including the Citizens Corps, the “Neighborhood Watch Teams” and the “Volunteer Police Service” established in partnership with local law enforcement. www.citizencorps.gov/pdf/council.pdf (looks like the pdf has been scrubbed)http://www.knowthelies.com/node/3524

There it is...Citizens Corps.... this “bill” didn’t just go away, it is waiting in the wings.


13 posted on 02/01/2013 3:39:48 PM PST by EBH ( The 2nd Amendment exists for times like this.)
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To: EBH

2006: “—To provide for the common defense by requiring all persons in the United States, including women, between the ages of 18 and 42 to perform a period of military service or a period of civilian service in furtherance of the national defense and homeland security, and for other purposes.”[1]

2010: “To require all persons in the United States between the ages of 18 and 42 to perform national service, either as a member of the uniformed services or in civilian service in furtherance of the national defense and homeland security... and for other purposes.” See H. R. 5741

2008: “We cannot continue to rely on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives that we’ve set. We’ve got to have a civilian national security force that’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded.”[20] Barack Obama

http://www.crossroad.to/articles2/010/civilian.htm


14 posted on 02/01/2013 3:47:14 PM PST by EBH ( The 2nd Amendment exists for times like this.)
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To: EBH

Well, that sounds like fascism. Federal “Neighborhood Watch” programs? I don’t doubt your facts are correct, but that would turn us into Mao’s China, Stalin’s Russia, and Hitler’s Germany.


15 posted on 02/01/2013 5:09:47 PM PST by SkyPilot
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To: SkyPilot

Uh...yeah. I am realizing that...prospect.

And I’m not even happy that I am able to think like...THAT.

But, I’m not seeing any real contrary...

We have been worried for 4 years about the use of keyesnian economics...

The other half of that is ...this universal service DRAFT. Just when anyone with common sense would be hardening their assets....they find every way to cut them?

I’m gonna bookmark this page. 6 months from now we should revisit it. And God help me, you can call me a fool.


16 posted on 02/01/2013 5:17:46 PM PST by EBH ( The 2nd Amendment exists for times like this.)
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To: EBH
To tell you the truth, nothing this Administration will do can surprise me. The American people are fools.

How many of them guessed in October of last year that Obama would issue 2 dozen "Executive Orders" on gun control before he was even inaugurated?

I think Obama wants the US military weakened so that it won't be there to fight the rise of global Islam.

Now, you can call ME crazy, but I believe that.

17 posted on 02/01/2013 5:38:58 PM PST by SkyPilot
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To: EBH
By the way, related thread I posted:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2984397/posts

18 posted on 02/01/2013 5:40:20 PM PST by SkyPilot
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To: SkyPilot
I think Obama wants the US military weakened so that it won't be there to fight the rise of global Islam.

If that happens then it isn't Obama, it is ...prophecy being fulfilled. Although we coudl get both....LOL?

19 posted on 02/01/2013 6:27:19 PM PST by EBH ( The 2nd Amendment exists for times like this.)
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To: EBH
If that happens then it isn't Obama, it is ...prophecy being fulfilled.

Well, as a Christian, I know that God is sovereign, and His plan is in all of this. He works things out.

I also can read the signs of the times. These are EXTREMEMLY perilous times that we live in. I foresee a major war in the Middle East soon. If there is not a war between Israel and the Muslims by the end of this year, I will be shocked.

Perhaps the Eziekiel war perhaps the war foretold in Psalm 83.

In any case, it is no secret to Bibi Netanyahu that Obama is on the side of the murdering Muslims.

That is a fact. The also uncomfortable fact that 1/2 of my nation voted for Obama and supported this atrocity makes me believe we are coming under judgement as a nation.

Obama is systematically destroying everything that was good and true about our nation: healthcare system, the military, private industry, etc.

I read today that Defense spending was down 22 percent last quarter, and that went a big way to dragging our economy into the new Depression (which we are in by the way) - despite what the smoke and mirrors crowd says.

Sequestration will drag us down further.

20 posted on 02/02/2013 5:52:34 AM PST by SkyPilot
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