Deficit cutters look to Pentagon budget

[Live and Learn]

Source: Associated Press

<snip>

All sides are trying to come up with a deficit-cutting plan of $1.2 trillion over 10 years. Any solution that might emerge from the high-stakes negotiations before the Jan. 2 deadline likely would include some reductions in the military budget, which has nearly doubled in the last decade to half a trillion dollars. That amount doesn't include the hundreds of billions of dollars spent on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

<snip>

"It is a big piggybank," said former Wyoming Sen. Alan Simpson, a Republican who along with Democrat Erskine Bowles had recommended $4 trillion in budget cuts over a decade, including deep reductions in defense, as part of a special presidential commission in December 2010.

"If you can't get in there and start getting stuff out of there when you have a defense budget of $740 billion bucks — and the defense budget of every major country on earth, 17 of them, including Russia and China, is $540 billion combined. Who is joshing who," said Simpson. "That's madness, madness."

One possible starting point is the recommendation of Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin, D-Mich., who indicated earlier this year that he would be willing to accept additional defense cuts of $10 billion a year as part of any solution to avoid the across-the-board cuts.



Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/deficit-cutters-look-pentagon-budget-084524659--politics.html

[SoapBox]

1. Put that pig on a diet!

sheesh, finally?

Talk about a bloated money sucker...cut the size of the trough and put that hog on a diet.

[Waltons_Mtn]

12. My thought too!

FINALLY!

[Drale]

2. So the federal budget it 3.6 trillion dollars

Last edited Mon Nov 12, 2012, 04:57 PM - Edit history (1)

and they (including a "democrat&quot want to cut 4 trillion? How does that make sense?

[OnlinePoker]

20. Simpson/Bowles was $4 Trillion, not Billion. n/t

[Drale]

21. I meant Trillion not Billion

just a typo

[Angleae]

24. $4 trillion over 10 years, that's $400 billion per year.

[jschurchin]

3. Ok. now I'm not the brightest bulb but....

If we cut 10% of this

defense budget of $740 billion bucks

Thats $74 billion a year. Now in a national budget of $3.7 Trillion, $74 billion isn't a lot, but it's a start.

[heaven05]

4. well????

we've GOT to remain a super (man) power, don't we??!!!???? spend, spend, spend while the people eat cake.

[Gregorian]

5. The most important part of cutting their budget is their carbon emissions.

Knock off the counterproductive bullshit. I have no idea what these people will do for jobs. Put them on roadwork.

[RC]

6. Instead of building war toys, have them rebuilding roads, bridges, high speed rail, light rail,

in this country.

[Myrina]

13. Yes please. With union workers, or veterans. No more no-bid contracts

for Carlyle, Halliburton, Dynagen or Lockheed-Martin.

Thankyaverymuch.

[ChazII]

7. Let's begin with the medical research that is funded by the military

Update 9/25/12 - Before recessing last week Congress did not pass appropriations bills for FY2013 which begins on October 1. To keep the goverenment funded Congress sent to the President a six-month Continuing Resolution (CR) which he is expected to sign this week.

The CR gives Federal agencies authorization to continue funding operations until March. As in past years when budgets were delayed, agencies will not fund programs like the CDMRP until the full appropriations bill is passed.

The current status is that the House passed a defense appropriations bill earlier this summer, which included $15 million for the CDMRP-NFRP. However, the Senate did not pass their version, which forced the passage of the CR. We will hold off asking supporters to contact their Senators until Congress returns in early 2013 and will be considering the full defense appropriations bill.

http://www.ctf.org/How-You-Can-Help/Advocacy.html

This is funding neurofibromatosis research. I have this genetic disorder but cuts need to be made and we need to start somewhere.

[on point]

8. Cut the DOD back to $300B/ yr and save 5 TRILLION over 10 yrs

That's the goal and deal to shoot for.

That is still way more than any other country spends and is plenty.

If the corporations want a larger military to protect THEIR 'interests' abroad, then THEY will have to pay for it. Not the American people. We don't want or need the empire

[xtraxritical]

9. The DoD does not even know the exact number of military golf clubs and vacation destinations

(known as bases) it has around the world. The military does not protect my freedom and liberty, in fact it endangers them because the rest of the world is scared shitless of the US and must arm themselves just in case we look their direction for resources. We invade countries without provocation. The real topper is, we have not prevailed in a conflict since WWII. Vietnam was a bust and cost 50,000 of my peers lives and hundreds of thousands maimed. Korea got nowhere and is still costing billions per year. Iraq is still up for grabs and still has sectarian violence on a daily basis. Afghanistan will always be tribal, the English found this out after ten years, the Soviets found this out after ten years, and (lol) America is finding out after more than eleven years, so far. You might point to the Iraq/Kuwait conflict, well hooray, we protected our oil companies what a stunning victory ( ). We are the only nation to kill with nuclear bombs and this started the "arms race" of the '60s,'70s and '80s. Anybody that praises intellectual midgets that enlist in the military as "America's heroes" are too misguided to even pity. "Thanks for your service General Petraeus and General Sinclair" now go back to pressuring subordinates for sexual favors.

[Bainbridge Bear]

10. Well, I finally agree with that idiot

Alan Simpson about something. We can decrease the "defense" budget by $100 billion/yr for the next ten years without jeopardizing our country. Even some military leaders have talked about the waste of Congress authorizing money for weapons systems that are not needed. Just think of the ten of billions that were pissed down the rat hole of "Star Wars". Thing is, Alan Simpson will also continue to go after the so-called entitlements of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. That is a vile mistake and you will hear precious little from him about closing tax loopholes for the uber-rich and corporations. If I ever had the chance to talk with this shill I would certainly ask him how the U.S. thrived economically well into the 70s when tax rates were higher than they are now. Right now the Rethugs have largely adopted the Grover Norquist dogma to not raise taxes. That means a windfall for the rich and corporations (who are basically sitting on trillions of dollars of investment capital) and long-term suffering for most of the rest of us as the infrastructure continues to deteriorate.

[xtraxritical]

26. SS and Medicare are not even part of the deficit, they are fully funded be employee/employer

payroll deductions. They are called entitlements because that is exactly what they are. Working people have paid into SS and Medicare their entire working careers and are entitled to those benefits. Reagan twisted the term entitlement into a pejorative much like "welfare queen" to burnish his neoconservative image.

[Gumboot]

11. Raising Grover's taxes....

... should be job #1 on the list.

I wanna see him scream....

[msongs]

14. unprivatize all the services GI's used to do for themselves - food, maintenance and logisitics. cut

the bloated monies given to war profiteers. if KFC and burger king want to open fast food joints for profit in war zones, let them pay for those joints out of their massive corporate profits.

[Live and Learn]

16. +1 Stop privatizing and profiting from war. nt

[DCKit]

18. Good one! Our military sholdn't be eating that crap anyway.

It's risky when you have to stop every two miles when someone in the Humvee needs to take an emergency potty break.

[AlexSatan]

25. The problem with that

Is that you then need GIs for all of that. The military personnel moves much slower than contracts can. If we don't need it anymore for a major overseas operation, you end the contract.

If military is running it, you don't just cut them loose. There is a lot more involved. A training program is just the beginning.

[DJ13]

15. Carl Levin, D-Mich. ......willing to accept additional defense cuts of $10 billion a year

Wow, so generous of him.

So, if they want to save $1.2T over 10 years, thats $120B per year.

Uh, so where does he think the other $110B per year should come from?

Seriously, the defense budget all by itself could make up the entire $120B and not short our defense capabilities at all.

[AntiFascist]

23. I agree...

can there be any question why we have such a huge deficit to begin with? Too bad so many high-level Dems have benefited.

[bl968]

17. How to fix the deficit

A 10% tax on stock market transactions would raise 10 trillion dollars a year. We can pay off the national debt in two years. Hell call it an Emergency Tax. We can make the people who got this country into the debt mess pay to fix it. It would also make markets more stable by discouraging High Frequency Trading.

"The proposal would hit especially hard those hedge funds and large banks earning hefty profits despite the shaky economy from a practice known as high-frequency trading. High-frequency traders use powerful computers to conduct hundreds of thousands of orders in mere seconds, taking advantage of slower (human) traders."

Lets say you trade 13,000 shares of a stock at $26. That's $338,000. Under this plan the seller would pay $33,800 to the Government to help pay down the debt. Leaving $300,000. The buyer wouldn't pay the tax until they traded the stocks.

[colsohlibgal]

19. Way, way overdue, The Elephant In the Room

Look up a pie chart of government expenses and you'll see why. What's sucking up our revenue is not a few welfare queens, that's a worn out republican talking point. It's startling when you can visualize it.

People put out of work by drastically slashing it - put them to work with a massive public works program to finally fix our crumbling infrastructure and National Parks. Win-win-win.

[Scuba]

22. If we can't afford to educate our children, to tend to our sick or care for our elderly ...

... just what is it the defense budget is defending?