Defense Spending Cuts for a New Congress? Not So Fast

The U.S. spends more on defense then the next 26 countries combined. 25 of them are allies. The U.S. if it signs on to the new Start will still have 5000 Warheads and somewhere in the U.S. somebody is in a panic. The logic being if you can't deter a country from agression with 5k warheads it's the 5001 that probably would have done the trick. Then there is the ever present "don't close the base in my country or my state" or " that extra engine for the fighter we will never use creates jobs in my district and those contractors make big fat contributions." Want to know what will be cut? Pick a group with a small voter block, the most need and then stick it to them. How about education after all kids are small and don't vote yet. Maybe seniors you know the ones that believe everything the see on TV? The GOP has already made it clear they are willing to help 10,000,000 formerly middle class Americans to povety. ( Nothing like finishing off the group they helped create aye?) Congress will do the usual cowardly thing, the GOP will play Grinch and the sheepish dems will ( wink wink nod nod) sort of give in to the plan they wanted all along but couldn't say so.

OK lets start with tax cuts to Big Oil, Tax cuts to the Rich, Tax Cuts to Farms, Cut all earmarks, Change Social Security to not pay to the Rich or at least people over a Million in income Change Medicare Medicade same way Close bases in Japan, Germany, South Korea they can defend themselves Cut the pay,pension,Health Care of Congress, Senate most are Millionairs twice over Good start

737 Military Bases around the Planet,,,while are major cities are looking like 3 rd. world countries.

I say let the tax breaks expire for everyone and use the money to pay for the wars in Afganistan and Iraq.Maybe if all Americans had some skin in the game more would pay attention to the waste in military spending.I'm tired of hearing how we we have to protect our foreign interest that are the corporations that have moved their operations overseas and outsourced our jobs while setting up tax shelters in the Cayman Islands to avoid paying taxes to the U.S also reinstate the draft and eliminate paying private security companies 5 times what we pay our soldiers.

The pentagon does not want to discouse the role of the U.S and military in this changing world,the military want to keep the American people gessing and it is costing the military alot of money.If the pentagon continues to keep the American people woundering the military will never be able to control defense spending.

Good article. I have deployed 3 times, and many have deployed more than me. There are places to cut waste (i.e. contractors), but we should remember that over the last several years we have taken a force that is over 30% smaller than what we had in 1990 and fulfilled all DOD requirements in addition to the conduct of two wars. Never before have we sent the same people to combat for this length of time. Thoughtful debate is needed, scrutiny should accompany our policies and expenditures, but increasing the burden by further shrinking the fighting force should not be an option as cuts are considered. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/graphic/2010/08/12/GR2010081206714.html MAJ Steve Douglas, Student, Command and General Staff College, U.S. Army Combined Arms Center, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. The views expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Department of the Army, Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government.

Nobody read the healthcare bill and nobody reads the Defense bill and everyone knows THAT is the place where they stick other bills that can't go through elsewhere, because no one reads it. If you look in the last one you'll find $90 million for a museum for a dead senator.

We outspend the rest of the world combined on defense spending. Are we preparing to fight everyone alone? Germany, Japan and other Western European countries need to step up to the plate on defense spending. It would also be great if Canada and all of it's oil revenue took a more significant role in defending freedome. Stopping the funding of Isreal's occupation of the West Bank, remember we are broke!

I am all for cutting out any portion of the defense budget that goes for waste, fraud, or abuse. That goes for all other Federal functions. Who has the political courage to do it?

Its time to cut the defense budget it now represents 56 cents of every dollar of the Federal Budget. The 2011 budget for defense & defense related expenditures is between 1.003–$1.223 trillion. They would like to have you believe its a much smaller amount but when you figure in pensions, VA, housing, NASA, etc...it bloats up quickly. It is not sustainable w/o raising revenues or cutting from other spending health care, social security, education, medicade & medicare. The defense budget has gone up 5 per cent per year since 2006. I would also remind you of the waste, fraud and malfeasence which is present and some people in both the military & congress haven't never met a weapons systems they didn't like. How many more air craft carriers & submarines shall we build?