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With all due respect to Mr. Rumsfeld, there has to be at least 10~20% in waste, fraud, and/or useless programs at the DOD, as there likely is in so many other Federal agencies, that deserves to be cut ASAP.

Yes, but notice which entity is always addressed up front. Yep, it’s the military, not all those other Federal agencies.

Defense is always a waste, fraud, or useless program magnet, whenever cuts in government spending is required.

The one department the government is tasked with actually funding, is the first one cut. Even as Conservatives, that’s the go to department.

Uh, no thanks.

Is there need for military cuts? There probably are. Now, do we want Obama and the Democrat Senate to devise what those cuts will be?

Uh, no thanks.

True that there is probably waste that can be eliminated from DOD and, in fact, Rumself was busy streamlining defense in the early days of his tenure.

However, I don't have much of a problem with defense being 5% or even 10% of a Federal budget (which would mean no further cuts from here on). Defense is a Federal responsibility. Entitlements are not, however, and they presently far outweigh the defense budget. Entitlements should be near 0% IMO and given largely to the states for them to handle.

Depends on what you consider waste. Training is egregiously expensive. The military enterprise as a whole is intriniscally expensive. If you get into a fire-fight, the last thing you care about is how much you are spending to keep yourself alive and stomp the enemy. Redundancy is ridiculously expensive, right up until the first system fails.

Every administration since WWII has used the 'waste fraud and abuse' cliche as a mantra for how they plan to save money. Somehow it never seems to add up.

I recall Rumsfeld took some heat for cancelling the Crusader long range artillary system. Did anyone ever give him credit for cutting a "useless" program? No. This, unfortunately, is just a form of demogoguery that never yields that pot o' gold.

The fraud waste and abuse argument is garbage. It's a soft topic that politicians cling too because they know like saving the baby seals no one will go against them. Cutting on defense using this argument is like saying we'll pay for a social health care system as Obama did. It's a facade argument to simply rationalize cuts and get people to jump on board with this nonsense.

We are not in 1945 where the threat picture is suddenly and massively reduced with only a few large and predictable as well as stable threats out there. Massive cuts in defense as we typically do post war (and we're not done) will cause major problems for us because we are facing numerous and different threats in various regions of the world. Things are too volatile and not even intelligence can give you good predictions. We have some out there who are rapidly gaining in military strength and capabilities (technology, i.e. China). The DoD already took some large hits with the cutting of the Zumwald boat, missile defense, F22, FCS... Massive cuts that went largely unreported in a pro Obama media and where other concerns (economic or pop culture trash) dominate.