While I respectfully agree with you that entitlement spending would have economic impact as well, and that our borrowing and over spending is out of control, I fundamentally disagree with your premise that cutting the military to this degree with sequestration is an acceptable avenue. It isn't.
The Republicans have done great damage already towards their reputation as the traditional vanguards of the military, and they continue to do even more damage to that end every day.
The entire sequestration scam is a blatant attempt to do "something" - and the Faustian bargain only touches discretionary spending and leaves all automatic spending (which is 62% of the budget) consisting of entitlements virtually unchange. The Democrats took entitlement spending (the greatest problem we have) "off the table" and the Republicans agreed. It was political and fiscal madness.
Even if we fiscally pummeled the military completely, and zeroed out her funding, look what we have:
The Republicans do want entitlement reform, the biggest problem right now is Medicare. Obama won't go along with it. He did agree in 2011 to raise the age from 65 to 67. That would have solved sequestration and a host of over budgetary problems all by itself. But, now the White House has said they refuse to even discuss it.
So here we are, playing the game that we can balance 3/3rds of the budget by playing with 1/3rd of the budget, and of those 1/3 cuts, the Pentagon takes 50% of them even though they are about 17% of the budget.
Moreover, we are punishing the most loyal child in the room - the US military. No organization has sacrificed more or answered the call as much as the US military, and it is the one organization paying the biggest political price.
I know why the Republicans and Democrats would rather scream at the captive audience of the Deputy Secretary of Defense and the Chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of staff at a hearing on Capitol Hill. They much prefer that than to tell a bunch of 65 year olds they must wait until they are 67 to collect Medicare. Or telling Social Security recipients their COLA will be computed to be less.
But that is what we must do.
I really don't have a problem with the other $600 Billion in cuts to domestic agencies. In fact, I would eliminate half the departments. But the keg they are tapping is naitonal defense, and they are doing it indiscriminately, broadly, and unequally.
From a morality standpoint, not a fiscal one, this action is absoulutely immoral for a nation to take.
Every single department of the military is affected by these cuts (they say the wounded warrior program is exempt, but that means little). Every aircraft, hospital, and even TRICARE for the military, families, and veterans is affected.
And all because we can't tell Americans that their entitlements are out of control?
Our nation is going to pay a terrible price for this shortsightedness.
