Posted on 09/23/2012 6:08:58 PM PDT by DeaconBenjamin
There is no such thing as "mandatory" spending.
ALL spending (except, arguably, for a Navy) is set by the House of Representatives, which is elected, entire, every two years.
Nothing that a House did in a previous Congress (except, again arguably, Naval procurement) can bind a new House to spend a nickel.
The military IS useful stuff. They preserve our freedom and keep us from getting murdered. Practically anything else can be done by the states.
Clinton and Obama have both sought to destroy our military.
Fifty years ago, defense spending accounted for 47% of total federal spending. Today, it accounts for 19%.
Under Clinton, America's military manpower decreased from 2.1 million to 1.6 million. Clinton removed 305,000 employees removed from the federal payroll. Unfortunately around 90% of these (286,000) were military personnel.
Clinton cut the Army from 18 divisions to 12, and the Navy from 546 ships to 380. Air Force flight squadrons were cut from 76 to 50.
What the impeached, disbarred-rapist scrapped, amounted to more manpower and materiel than most, if not every military force in the world.
I used an M2 Burner in the field. Know what that is? Pressurized gasoline heat source for cooking and heating water.
Dangerous as hell.
When I got out, the Babington burner was FINALLY coming online after wasting millions on a bunch of crap required by procurement.
I'm all for our guys in the field having the good stuff. Just want procurement to quit wasting money on BS.
Our money would go farther for them.
/johnny
I tend to agree. Although what I would prefer would be mandated cuts in employees proportioned across the whole organization.
The federal government today is comprised of too many folks with too much time on their hands thinking up ways to interfere in other people’s lives and to mess up the economy. Cut 10% this year. 10% next year. Keep cutting until we can actually tell cuts were made. Then cut another 50%.
But overall, the description in the article of the cuts seems like a pretty sensible way to start chopping down our insane federal bureaucracy.
“more than $1.2 trillion would be cut from federal spending in the next ten years”
That’s it? We need to cut twice that every year for 30 years to have any hope of eliminating the debt.
The Defense Dept. is as wasteful and corrupt as any other government agency. The way new weapons are approved is based on how many congressmen a contractor can buy. The entire bloated federal mess must be cut drastically.
That's a totally different issue and I don't disagree, but those "other government agencies" should not exist.
Shut em down and let the bureaucRATs find real jobs where they actually have to work.
What you say is true. I posted the numbers because the article talks about “mandatory” spending.
Can’t disagree with that. :-)
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