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Defense Chief Urges Big Cuts In Military Spending
Hugh Pickens writes "The NY Times reports that US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates says the Pentagon is wasting money it will no longer get, and focused on targets as diverse as the large number of generals and admirals, the layers of bureaucracy in the Pentagon, and the cost of military health care. 'The attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, opened a gusher of defense spending that nearly doubled the base budget over the last decade,' Gates says. 'Military spending on things large and small can and should expect closer, harsher scrutiny. The gusher has been turned off, and will stay off for a good period of time.' Gates, a Republican who was carried over as Defense Secretary from the Bush administration, has already canceled or trimmed 30 weapons programs with long-term savings predicted at $330 billion, but is now seeking to convert as much as 3% of spending from 'tail' to 'tooth' — military slang for converting spending from support services to combat forces. While this may not seem like a significant savings in the Pentagon's base budget, cuts of any size are certain to run hard against entrenched constituencies. Gates's critique of top-heavy headquarters overseas was underscored by the location of the speech — the Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library and Museum. President Eisenhower, the supreme allied commander in Europe during World War II, warned the nation of the menacing influence of an emerging 'military-industrial complex' in his farewell address as president in 1960. 'Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals,' said Eisenhower, 'so that security and liberty may prosper together.'"
Eisenhower said:
Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.
http://www.h-net.org/~hst306/documents/indust.html
I wonder why people always ignore that part.
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
I am pretty sure Gates is just the mouthpiece for the administration on this. His job is to say and do what the Commander In Chief (aka President) says. Either way, considering roughly 1/6th of the federal budget is millitary spending, we ought to be seeing some better results for that than failed wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
For 665 billion dollars a year, we ought to have hover cars, laser rifles, robot/android soldiers, forcefields and fusion power by now.
2010 Federal budget: 3.552 Trillion Dollars
Total Federal revenue to pay for budget: 2.381 Trillion Dollars
Amount we put on the "Federal Credit Card" (a.k.a. our Children's Grandchildren), just for 2010: 1.717 Trillion Dollars
Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_United_States_federal_budget
http://www.gpoaccess.gov/usbudget/fy10/pdf/fy10-newera.pdf
moox. for a new generation.
http://www.defense.gov/speeches/speech.aspx?speechid=1467
I found a lot of the media coverage to be selective, and the headline on this /. posting to be somewhat misleading
Some jackass will always be willing to take money for such a cause.
Remember triple amputee Vietnam vet Max Cleland?
They have no shame.
GOP called a wounded veteran a pussy (and a several things a lot worse)(1) to add to their chicken-hawk rankings (2) here in Georgia. 1)http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A14474-2002Jun19.html 2)http://www.villagevoice.com/2004-08-17/news/the-sunshine-patriots/
The support given to veterans is not "military healthcare." That bill is footed by the VA which is not part of the military. Gates, to his credit, took strong action when the problems at Walter Reid were first exposed, and top brass lost their jobs. This is one of the few people from the previous administration that has earned my respect.
Apparently you are unaware of the drastic cuts in the military that took place during the Clinton administration. Politicians were practically wetting themselves with glee to try to figure out ways to spend the 'peace dividend' after the Soviet Union collapsed. Unfortunately, the world is a much more dangerous place than it was in 1992. What IS going to bankrupt the US Federal government is all the entitlement programs, NOT the military - one of the few constitutional items the Feds actually spend money on.
When I was born, America was the industrial giant of the world. Economic theory held that a positive trade balance was necessary to remain an economic power and that "consumer driven" societies were doomed to collapse under a mountain of debt. Since then, we have given up our manufacturing leadership in every area but one -- weaponry. The military industrial complex is our last big manufacturing exporter of hard goods. True we are selling death on a scale that Wall-mart might envy, but just like the Soviet Union in the 1970-80s this is what keeps us as a world power. Many might say "good riddance" to such a role, but this industry will not go down without a fight, something that is probably second nature. Many Americans will support them too. Mr. Gates may slow the acquisition of new weapons. However, it will only take one contractor selling a "latest and greatest" weapon to another country instead of US for all of that to change.
A sense of proportion? Here's some proportion for you:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_expenditures
If we cut our war budget from six times the next-biggest country to three times the next-biggest country, our budget would balance and our economy would grow. And we would still be far and away the best-defended nation.
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
You're talking about (I'll assume) Uniform Allowances, Basic Allowance for Housing and Basic Allowance for Subsistence. The uniform allowance comes once a year on the anniversary date of your service. It's enough to purchase a few uniforms to replace those that are worn or damaged during the course of the year. Those uniforms are paid for out of the initial paychecks a service member receives while at boot or OCS. They're not given away. They are paid for. Basic Allowance for Housing is based off of rank and time in service. It's not based on the number of dependents, but whether you have dependents or not. This means it's the same for a service member with just a spouse as it is for a service member with a wife and four kids. If you live in the barracks, you don't get this. If you live aboard a ship, you don't get this. If you live in base housing, you don't get this. In some cases, it will cover rent and utilities. In many cases, it will not even cover rent. Basic Allowance for Subsistence is meant to offset the cost of meals for the service member only. BAS does not increase with dependents because it is meant for the actual member, not their family. If you live in the barracks or aboard a ship, you don't get this as you're expected to eat in the mess hall/galley/etc. I Now all of this isn't enough to live on. Military members still have to put gas in their cars, maintain residences and take care of the same things their civilian counterparts do. To call the vast majority of a military member's salary disposable is ignorant at worst and uninformed at best.
You're going off of the '09 budget? Those numbers don't properly reflect military spending.
This one is skewed in the other direction, but probably closer to reality:
http://www.warresisters.org/pages/piechart.htm
Also, "it's not military, it's entitlement" is pretty binary thinking. The real problem is that the money taken in annually by the government is somewhere between $1.5-2T dollars. There are many thing contributing to this, military spending, shifting the tax burden onto the bankrupt or nearly bankrupt lower and middle classes, buying garbage assets from massive, bankrupt banks so that they can turn around and buy up smaller banks, etc, etc.
The debt is at about 90% of GDP and growing at a pants-filling 10% per year, with no end in sight. Military spending, "entitlement programs", taxation policy, DHS bullshit, everything should be on the table...but won't.
How does that math work?
According to your chart, the US spends 607 billion on its entire military.
According to this chart (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_budget) the budget deficit is about 1.4 trillion.
So if you cut out US military spending entirely, you wouldn't have cut half of the deficit.
If you cut it to 3x what China spends (3 x 85 billion = 255 billion, or a 352 billion dollar cut) you will still have over 1 trillion of deficit.
The US spends a ton on its military. Whether it needs to or not is something that can be debated, as well as whether that money could be better spent elsewhere. But saying that military spending is even the primary reason the US government is bankrupt is just bullshit.
What a wonderful, hippie, idea!
Unfortunately the numbers aren't anywhere like you think they are.
Total outlays this year: $3.5T (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/7a/U.S._Federal_Spending_-_FY_2007.png)
Total receipts: $2.1T (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/f9/U.S._Federal_Receipts_-_FY_2007.png)
Deficit: $1.4T
Total military spending: $782B.
Unless you can somehow draft nega-soldiers that get paid in negative dollars, I find it rather unlikely that cutting the military budget by $390B or so will make up a $1.4T deficit.
It pays, sometimes, to get your facts from sources other than your hippie friends sitting around a campfire.
There's simply no way one F-22 can replace 4 F-15's in the real world, no matter what Lockheed's marketing department says.
You raise an extremely good point, and Lanchester's Square Law agrees with you. Basically, in order for a military force to beat an opponent twice its size, its weapons need to be four times as effective. In other words, numbers trump technology.
This only goes so far of course. It's based on a model in which both armies are engaged for the entire duration of the fight. If technology allows one army to strike the other from a distance with impunity, then the model does break.
It was supposed to be the "cheap" supplement to the F-22, much the same way the F-16 was the cheap supplement to the F-15. But now the F-35 costs as much, or possibly even more than the F-22 (CBO estimate: $122 million a copy and climbing), while being a substantially less capable airplane. And this has happened under Gates' watch.
I agree. I the plane is anywhere over 100 million per plane, it doesn't make much sense. At that price, based on what I've seen and read, the F22 is more than twice the plane. So from that perspective, it doesn't sound like the tax payers are getting a good return on the money.
And yet, he balks at buying more Super Hornets for the Navy instead, at what is a bargain price in the fighter world... $45 million apiece. There's no logic here.
On the other hand, I can defend this position. Each F22 and F35 consistently tests on par with at least a ten to one ratio. That means an F35, at 120 million each, versus 45 million per SH, is still a far, far, far better buy. For the same money we can get 2.7 SH or one F35. Given that one F35 can easily take out ten SH's, that places us 315 million ahead when contrasting F35 vs SH purchases.