{"id":1839,"date":"2010-06-12T01:32:57","date_gmt":"2010-06-12T08:32:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=1839"},"modified":"2010-06-12T01:32:57","modified_gmt":"2010-06-12T08:32:57","slug":"panel-says-cut-defense","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2010\/06\/12\/panel-says-cut-defense\/","title":{"rendered":"Panel Says Cut Defense"},"content":{"rendered":"

At some point we need to cut spending, because it\u2019s healthier, economically, to have a balanced budget.  But what do we cut?<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\"cutdefence\"<\/a> A panel commissioned by Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) is recommending nearly $1 trillion in cuts to the Pentagon\u2019s budget during the next 10 years<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

The Sustainable Defense Task Force, a commission of scholars from a broad ideological spectrum appointed by Frank, the House Financial Services Committee chairman, laid out actions the government could take that could save as much as $960 billion between 2011 and 2020.<\/p>\n

Measures presented by the task force include making significant reductions to the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program<\/strong>, which has strong support from Defense Secretary Robert Gates; delaying the procurement of a new midair refueling tanker<\/strong> the Air Force has identified as one of its top acquisition priorities; and reducing the Navy\u2019s fleet to 230 ships instead of the 313 eyed by the service<\/strong>. <\/p>\n

Shipbuilding has strong support in the congressional defense committees, which write the Pentagon bills. Efforts to reduce the number of ships would run into resistance from the Pentagon and the shipbuilding lobby. <\/p>\n

Frank on Friday warned that if he can\u2019t convince Congress to act in the \u201cgeneral direction\u201d of the task force recommendation, \u201cthen every other issue will suffer.\u201d Not cutting the Pentagon’s budget could lead to higher taxes and spending cuts detrimental to the environment, housing and highway construction. <\/p>\n

The acceptance of the recommendations would depend on a \u201cphilosophical change" and a \u201credefinition of the strategy,\u201d Frank said at press conference on Capitol Hill. <\/p>\n

He said the creation of the deficit reduction commission offers the best opportunity for the reduction recommendations. Frank wants to convince his colleagues to write to the deficit reduction commission and warn that they would not approve any of the plans suggested by the commission unless reduction of military spending is included\u2026 [emphasis added<\/em>]<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Inserted from <Common Dreams<\/a>><\/p>\n

I believe that it is imperative that the US maintain a strong defensive capability, but we\u2019re fielding the wrong mix.  The military-industrial complex is in love with big, costly 20th century weapons systems that do not fill the requirements of 21st century conflicts.  What good is an Ohio Class boat (shown above) against a dirty bomb delivered by suitcase?<\/font><\/p>\n

I don\u2019t think Franks will be successful, because of the way defense contractors have embedded themselves.  The components of every major weapons system are produced by subcontractors scattered all over the country.  Virtually no Senators or Representatives can vote to defund any weapons system without voting to put some of their own constituents out of work.  That\u2019s the least efficient way to do it.  All the manufacturing for a weapons system should be done on one locality.  Can you imaging the extra cost and fuel we waste shipping parts all over the country.<\/font><\/p>\n

There are also other things we could do.  One thing is increase the size of our armed forces and have out troops do the jobs contractors are doing now.  Why should the taxpayers pay KBR over $150,000 per year for a kitchen worker to peel potatoes, when a private can do it better for a fraction of that cost. Also, that private is a trained soldier if the need arises.  And you can bet our troops won\u2019t be electrocuted in showers built by Seabees.<\/font><\/p>\n

One more thing.  We could save a bunch by bringing our troops home from Afghanistan.<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At some point we need to cut spending, because it\u2019s healthier, economically, to have a balanced budget.  But what do we cut? A panel commissioned by Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) is recommending nearly $1 trillion in cuts to the Pentagon\u2019s budget during the next 10 years. The Sustainable Defense Task Force, a commission of scholars […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1839","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-5-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1839","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1839"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1839\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1839"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1839"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1839"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}