Defense budget facing $850 billion cut in deal

[SpartanDem]

I don't think people understand the scope of cuts defense is facing if we hit the trigger 800+ billion is no chump change. Hell, I'm not even sure the drive us of the cliff teabaggers are willing to cut this deep.




The pact between President Barack Obama and lawmakers on Capitol Hill, which was approved by the U.S. House of Representatives on Monday, would trim security spending by $350 billion over 10 years by limiting its growth relative to inflation.

A second round of almost $500 billion in cuts could take effect, according to the White House, unless lawmakers pass legislation stipulating spending reductions elsewhere.


http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/08/02/us-usa-debt-defense-idUSTRE77100Y20110802

[DURHAM D]

1. It will never happen.

[TK421]

4. I will be very surprised if it does n/t

[Motown_Johnny]

2. I was wondering if a tax cut to medicare providers might off set the

2% cut in payments that are part of that trigger.


It isn't as if (R)s can vote against a tax cut

[chill_wind]

3. $350 billion over 10 years? Crocodile tears.

Even the winger deficit fetishists at the Simpson-Bowles catfood commission came up with almost 1 trillion.

Byron Callan, a senior defense analyst with Capital Alpha Partners, said cuts of this size have been expected for months.

“We thus see no net change for defense, as we have believed that most defense stocks have discounted a DoD budget cut between $400 to $800 billion over the next 10 years,” Callan wrote in an Aug. 1 email.

Perhaps the deal’s best news for defense companies is that the government will be able to pay its August bills, Callan said.

Even if the deal leads to cutting the full $850 billion from the Pentagon, that’s still less than recommended by two recent bipartisan debt panels.

The Simpson-Bowles Commission recommended cutting roughly $1 trillion from the Pentagon’s budget over 10 years. The panel was led by Alan Simpson, a former Republican senator from Wyoming, and Erskine Bowles, who served as chief of staff to President Clinton.

A separate panel said the Pentagon could cut $1 trillion over a decade and still adequately provide for the country’s defense. That panel was led by former Senate Budget Chairman Pete Domenici, R-N.M., and former Clinton White House budget director Alice Rivlin.

(snip)


The final number for defense cuts will likely be $700 billion over 10 years, according to Jim McAleese, of McAleese & Associates, McLean, Va, a law firm specializing in defense matters. This is a combination of the first $350 billion, plus whatever recommendations emerge from the new bipartisan congressional committee, he said.

http://www.armytimes.com/news/2011/08/defense-spending-expectations-largely-unchanged-by-debt-deal-080111/

[Kolesar]

10. your vote +1 eom

[killbotfactory]

5. Oh how horrible we've been sold out again..

Oh wait... nevermind.

[valerief]

6. Military spending has to go to $1000-a-gallon gas. nt

[WCGreen]

7. It will be taken up by the draw downs in Iraq and Afghanistan...

I suppose.

[sammytko]

8. I think so also - makes it easier to vote - yes n/t

[Better Believe It]

9. Congress sure won't do that! Instead they'll make those cuts in non-military spending programs.

They will do that rather than accept "across-the-board" manadatory spending cuts this fall.

Nice.

[spanone]

11. 2nd paragraph of that link

But with Republican legislators vowing to block a second round of cuts in military spending and the State Department and U.S. foreign aid also on the chopping block, it appeared the Pentagon would be spared a dramatic downsizing.

[gratuitous]

12. And not just that

But one good terroristic scare, and defense spending bobs right back up to its current level, plus some. Two people get on Fox and chant "Support the troops," and we're back to pouring the Treasury directly into the bottomless maw of the Pentagon.

[Imajika]

15. Precisely...

There is absolutely nothing that prevents Congress from simply authorizing more money for the Defense Department separate from the budget. The next big terrorist attack anywhere and all those Defense cuts will be added right back. Future budgets are going to override nearly everything in this agreement anyway.

[awoke_in_2003]

13. "unless lawmakers pass legislation stipulating spending reductions elsewhere"

a little devil in the details. What do you think will really happen- a 500b cut in defense, or a 500b spending reductions elsewhere? Defense will NOT be cut.

[Modern_Matthew]

14. I hope we hit the trigger for this very reason. I'd be ecstatic to lose that much in defense. nt