Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Pentagon to cut spending by $78 billion, reduce troop strength
The Washington Post ^ | January 6, 2011 | Craig Whitlock

Posted on 01/06/2011 12:04:47 PM PST by ConjunctionJunction

The Pentagon will have to cut spending by $78 billion over the next five years, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said Thursday, forcing the Army and Marine Corps to shrink the number of troops on active duty and eventually imposing the first freeze on military spending since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

The surprise announcement from Gates was a reminder for the military establishment - which has benefited from a gusher of new money over the past decade - that it will not remain exempt from painful austerity measures that federal lawmakers say will be necessary to control the soaring national debt.

In a news conference to announce the cuts, Gates said he hopes that "what had been a culture of endless money . . . will become a culture of savings and restraint" at the Defense Department.

Gates had hoped to spare the Pentagon from the budget ax. Over the past two years, he cut dozens of expensive weapons programs and more recently sought to persuade lawmakers that the military had adopted a newfound thriftiness that would justify small but steady percentage increases in the size of its budget for the foreseeable future.

On Thursday, he said the armed services had successfully carried out a directive he issued in May to squeeze $100 billion in savings over the next five years by eliminating low-priority programs, thinning command structures and reducing overhead at the Pentagon. In return, he said, the Army, Navy and Air Force will get to reallocate nearly all of that money on new weapons systems and other combat-related projects.

But the fiscal realities facing the federal government led the Obama administration in recent weeks to order Gates to cut an additional $78 billion from its long-term spending plan.

(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...


TOPICS: Breaking News; Government; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: army; cuts; marinecorps; marines; military; nationalsecurityfail; spending; troops
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-20 ... 41-6061-8081-100 ... 121-133 next last
To: Braak

I used to work for DoD and there are vast amounts of duplicative and unnecessary bureaucracy that not only could but should be cut.


61 posted on 01/06/2011 2:12:20 PM PST by Seruzawa (If you agree with the French raise your hand - If you are French raise both hands.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 51 | View Replies]

To: Longdriver; Captain Kirk
Agreed. Now that military spending will be cut,let’s move on to Medicare and Socialist Security cuts too.

We need to cut 2 Trillion dollars a year, and we needed to do it yesterday. No amount of Marines can stave off an internal collapse due to fiscal insanity.

I think even a lot of Freepers are in denial about just what is coming down the pike for this country.

62 posted on 01/06/2011 2:16:19 PM PST by triumphant values (Never criticize that to your right.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 42 | View Replies]

To: ConjunctionJunction
As I recall President Bush spent many millions rebuilding the military after years of neglect in the Clinton years.

That means President Palin will have to spend billions to repair he military after Obama puts a hurt on them and pumps up our enemies in various and nefarious ways.

63 posted on 01/06/2011 2:17:45 PM PST by elpadre (AfganistaMr Obama said the goal was to "disrupt, dismantle and defeat al-Qaeda" and its allies.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Seruzawa
I used to work for DoD and there are vast amounts of duplicative and unnecessary bureaucracy that not only could but should be cut.

I don't know why so many conservatives seem to think that the Department of Defense is immune from the Iron Law of Bureaucracy.

64 posted on 01/06/2011 2:19:28 PM PST by triumphant values (Never criticize that to your right.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 61 | View Replies]

To: ConjunctionJunction

That’s fine, there’s probably 78 billion worth of able-bodied, red-blooded American Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, and Marines that are more than ready to get out before they are forced to service the homo-leninists of the new pink armed forces.


65 posted on 01/06/2011 2:25:43 PM PST by ichabod1 (Hail Mary Full of Grace, The Lord Is With Thee...)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: ConjunctionJunction
Plan to shrink active duty Army and Marine Corps.

The repeal of DADT was going to cause that anyway.

66 posted on 01/06/2011 2:29:24 PM PST by Cementjungle
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: ConjunctionJunction

Gotta’ cut Defense so the One can vacation and see the World with his entourage.


67 posted on 01/06/2011 2:29:53 PM PST by Gene Eric (Your Hope has been redistributed. Here's your Change.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Cementjungle; ConjunctionJunction

>> Plan to shrink active duty Army and Marine Corps.

>> The repeal of DADT was going to cause that anyway.

So budget cuts, not DADT, will be “the reason” for the exodus.


68 posted on 01/06/2011 2:32:59 PM PST by Gene Eric (Your Hope has been redistributed. Here's your Change.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 66 | View Replies]

To: DManA

Don’t you think that if we are looking to cut spending we need to look at the TRILLION DOLLARS we have spent on overseas military adventures before we start cutting programs that really benefit people. That’s what Dennis Kucinich says.


69 posted on 01/06/2011 2:33:00 PM PST by ichabod1 (Hail Mary Full of Grace, The Lord Is With Thee...)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: DManA
Exactly. I am fine with a Pentagon budget reduction, but we should make it clear to the dozens of nations and regions around the world that depend upon us for their security, that they're on their own, and we should start ramping down our foreign operations - our troops can't be expected to do everything.

This of course brings up a larger discussion that I think we as Americans need to have anyway: has the time come for us to reduce our foreign presence in a major way? To return to a concept of national defense more in line with our traditional republican (small 'r') notions of the proper role of the military? Has our foreign presence since WWII - so much now criticized as an imperial one - now outgrown both our own strategic needs and our ability to pay for it? Conversely would we be drawing down at precisely the time when new emerging threats like China, Iran, etc., are ramping up? Will there ever be a time to drawn down? I would love to here some informed FReeper views on this without the 'isolationist' versus 'imperialist' hyperbole that too often characterizes this discussion. I'm open to both viewpoints.

70 posted on 01/06/2011 2:34:38 PM PST by americanophile
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: napscoordinator
Why on Earth can they not pass a budget?

The Dims did this, not the Republicans.

There are two pieces of the budget process:
1. The budget resolution which is internal to each house and lays out the spending authority of the various appropriations subcommittees - they did not pass one this year, because they already knew they were busting any budget they could write down - and so the individual committees have had free reign.
2. The individual appropriations bills for each agency. Although the individual houses passed most of these, no conference to reconcile was held, in part because everyone knew spending was going to be an election issue. Once the dims got tossed their was no fixing it.

As a consequence the Senate did what is usual in an election year - passed an Omnibus spending bill for the remainder of the year - overlooking the Constitutional requirement that all spending bills originate in the House. It was dead on arrival in the house, and the government is presently financed through a(nother) continuing resolution pending the passage of the next continuing resolution or a set of actual appropriations bills.

71 posted on 01/06/2011 2:39:29 PM PST by AndyJackson
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 39 | View Replies]

To: americanophile

I’m open to both viewpoints.

I’m with you but I lean towards the position that we are over relying on “hard diplomacy” as they call it in the foreign policy business.

Also we are over using to the point of abuse our reservists.


72 posted on 01/06/2011 2:40:40 PM PST by DManA
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 70 | View Replies]

To: dragnet2

ditto.


73 posted on 01/06/2011 2:41:22 PM PST by AndyJackson
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 60 | View Replies]

To: ConjunctionJunction

Creating the New Pink Peace Corpse


74 posted on 01/06/2011 2:41:48 PM PST by GeronL (How DARE you have an opinion!!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: americanophile
Conversely would we be drawing down at precisely the time when new emerging threats like China, Iran, etc., are ramping up?

First, China is an emerging power, but not the emerging military "threat" that everyone supporting ever expanding military budgets would portray them as. The Chinese are not by nature or tradition expansionists or imperialists. Are they savvy businessmen and traders. Yes. Are the duplicitous diplomatic negotiators. Of course. Do they steal industrial secrets and use them to compete against us. Unrefutably yes.

But the counter to this is not more mechanized divisions to stave of the imagined Sino armored thrust down the Aleutians and through Alaska, Canada and the Cascades to strike at the heartland of California. It is to revitalize our own intellectual and industrial capital and take economic production as the basis for economic competition seriously.

75 posted on 01/06/2011 2:47:14 PM PST by AndyJackson
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 70 | View Replies]

To: DManA

I totally agree on the reservists. On the larger point, according to critics like the late Chalmers Johnson, America has upwards of 700 foreign military bases. The question has to be asked: what are we doing in all these places, how long can we afford it, and what are the consequences of this kind of unprecedented global footprint?


76 posted on 01/06/2011 2:52:35 PM PST by americanophile
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 72 | View Replies]

To: AndyJackson

Oh, I quite agree with that. Well said.


77 posted on 01/06/2011 2:54:26 PM PST by americanophile
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 75 | View Replies]

To: ConjunctionJunction

Four of the five top stories in the sidebar are about explosions around the country and they want to cut troop strength. Makes NO sense...but nothing that this administration does makes sense!


78 posted on 01/06/2011 2:56:22 PM PST by luvie (Thank God)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: US Navy Vet

We could always lose less E-9s. All they do is figure out new places you need to wear your PT belt or cover.


79 posted on 01/06/2011 2:56:28 PM PST by chargers fan
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 29 | View Replies]

To: chargers fan

Lose = use


80 posted on 01/06/2011 2:57:09 PM PST by chargers fan
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 79 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-20 ... 41-6061-8081-100 ... 121-133 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson