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The Spectacle Blog
Donald Marron, a member of George W. Bush’s Council of Economics Advisers, thinks that the costly intervention in Libya underscores a need to reduce defense spending:
This year the US will spend about $110 billion in Afghanistan and $44 billion in Iraq. Regular defense spending is even larger, at about $550 billion. Military spending will total more than $700 billion this year.
…
Defense should be on the table as well. Military spending has more than doubled over the past decade. Some of that increase has been necessary to respond to the 9/11 attacks and the new challenges they revealed. But not all. Some of the increase has simply been excess.
Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, made this clear in remarks in January. Because of the dramatic expansion of the Pentagon budget, he said, “We’ve lost our ability to prioritize, to make hard decisions, to do tough analysis, to make trades.”
We also have embarrassingly little ability to track that spending. When the Government Accountability Office recently audited the government’s finances, it concluded - as it has for many years - that the Defense Department’s books are so poorly kept that they can’t be audited. Taxpayers are thus giving $700 billion a year to an organization that can’t prioritize and can’t tell us where the money is going. That’s unacceptable.
The problem of ever-increasing military spending is real. Yet military spending, unlike so much else that contributes to the deficits, is a legitimate function of government. And with a president who entered the national scene as an antiwar candidate bringing the number of wars we’re fighting to three, it’s hard to see where or how the government is going to cut military spending.
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More Blog Posts by Joseph Lawler
http://spectator.org/blog/2011/04/20/conservative-defense-cuts
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logan| 4.20.11 @ 1:52PM
The DOD needs to cut ouf "gay awareness/pride/education" programs, muslim "outreach" programs, discharge women when they become pregnant (yes, you heard me right, they are unfit for duty) and numerous other social program nonsense.
We need more Navy warships, more Air Force aircraft, those are high priorities.
But we only need these military assets if we still believe we are a sovereign country. If we're just a protectorate of the UN, of the "global community", then we need no defense at all.
Al Adab| 4.20.11 @ 2:03PM
Yes indeed there are and can be Conservaive defense cuts. Logan above notes some and points to the fact that The Left uses our military as a social engineering experimental organization. This is reprehensible. Yes, we need more ships, planes and men. Do we need redundant engines for strike aircraft just so jobs in some certain district can continue? No. That is where the rubber meets the road.
Oldefarte| 4.20.11 @ 3:18PM
This country should immediately extract our troops from the middle east and redeply same to Germany, Japan, Europe, etc. They are there sadly because of the former president's non-heading of his Joint Chief's advice that IF YOU BREAK IT, YOU OWN IT. We never should have gotten bogged down in another Viet-Nam-like ground war against an invisible enemy. Its impossible to tell the good guys from the bad over there, since they don't wear identifying uniforms [while we do so]. This country [post 9/11] should have simply sent over several B-52's loaded with atomic bombs, and after unloading same in a desert area, issued the warning to them: TRY ANOTHER ATTACK ON OUR INNOCENT AMERICAN CITIZENS AGAIN, AND THE MIDDLE EAST WILL CEASE TO EXIST! Yeah, we can reduce military spending by same, by non-manufacturing supersonic military hardware designed to fight cold war Russia [but not Muslim terrorists hiding inside caves], by abondoning/selling duplicitous domestic military bases to municipalities/corporations for conversion to private enterprises, etc. We can also reduce farm subsidies, foreign aid [to so-called friends, but realistic enemies], and especially any/all forms of domestic governmental welfare [that has not worked, is not working and will never work]!!!!!!
Al Adab| 4.20.11 @ 3:41PM
Hey Oldster,
I like the idea of the B-52 fleet being put to use. However, instead of nukes I would propose a mass drop of surplus hog bellies. Helps our farmers, covers the cities Baghdad, Teheran etc, with "uncleanness" and sure sends a message to the Moslems. Imagine, who could they get to clean up the mess?
Prester John| 4.20.11 @ 4:19PM
The United States will never be destroyed (short of a nuclear war) by a foreign power but can certainly be destroyed from within economically.
Bring 'em home from Europe--it's been over 20 years since The Wall came down. Let the Europeans fends for themselves as best they can.
And bring 'em home from Korea and Japan also. If we still need the force structure at least spend it maintaining them on U.S. soil (the closer to our southern border the better).
Stop the Libya fiasco, accelerate the withdrawal from Iraq, and start an expedited withdrawal from Afghanistan--that hole is a lost cause and not worth another drop of blood or a single dollar. Keep a few B-2s carrying lots and lots of bombs and cruise missiles on the runway at White AFB in Missouri (or Diego Garcia) just to let the Taliban know we still care.
Use the first couple of years of savings to replace/upgrade equipment and then start cutting for real.
l5j6| 4.20.11 @ 5:48PM
Why would anyone want to "cut for real", the defense department? You prefer to be unarmed, unprotected? Curious........
Prester John| 4.20.11 @ 4:21PM
I meant of course Whiteman AFB.
Derek Leaberry| 4.20.11 @ 5:02PM
The first military cut should be Michael Mullen who should be housed at the Navy brig at Charleston.
Inevitably, the military can be cut in a rational way or a financial cataclysm will cause it to be cut radically by international financial institutions. There is little choice and for Republicans to take military off the table is almost as irresponsible as the Democrats digging their heels in for social programs, Medicare and Social Security.
l5j6| 4.20.11 @ 5:51PM
Why cut defense and NASA when Hussein bin Obama is spending hundreds of billions on ACORN and similar liberal democrat election rigging outfits and wasted social programs like the free school lunch program and the free school breakfast program?
I say more defense and more NASA spending.........much, much less social program spending.
Margie| 4.20.11 @ 9:04PM
Amen, l5j6.
The Liberalterriors don't like the military. They will nip, nip nip at your heels for speaking truthfully.
Canon| 4.21.11 @ 9:24PM
Liar. Liberal war-mongers like you hate the military, which is why you support every useless war out there.
c. j. acworth| 4.20.11 @ 6:15PM
Just for laughs I Googled "US military bases in Germany". Wikipedia lists about 50(!) US Army installations alone. I have no idea how big some of them are, some may be nothing more than a Major, two NCO's and a PX, but c'mon! 50? Hasn't Germany been pacified yet?
l5j6| 4.20.11 @ 7:33PM
Not about Germany dude......it's like real estate: location, location, location. Germany is very strategically located. Like Iraq in the Middle East. Like Japan in Asia.
Us being in those locations help "deter" the growth of other powers - Russia, China, Iran.
Consider yourself educated.
Prester John| 4.21.11 @ 9:54AM
No, it's really being played for suckers by the Europeans, Japanese, Koreans, and Arabs.
WE DO NOT HAVE THE MONEY to continue to squander it, whether it is on wasteful defense spending or worthless domestic spending.
Of course verything else needs to be cut, domestic spending much more so than military, but why are we building a huge new base in South Korea (90% paid for by the Koreans) so that US military personnel can now go there on accompanied tours with their families??!!
In Europe our defense spending over the last 60 years allowed them to build the social welfare system which is now going to crash their economies. The Russian military is a joke and they have enough worries in the Far East with the Chinese.
When will we start taking care of our own country?
Again, we will never be destroyed by a foreign power, we will do it too ourselves by wrecking our economy and allowing ourselves to get sucked into foreign adventures (Libya anyone?) that do not concern us.
l5j6| 4.21.11 @ 10:18AM
I'm afraid you are quite naive. You said, "we will never be destroyed by a foreign power".
Wow, you're kind of thinking is more than a bit scary. Sound like an naive academic.
Just because Russia and China are no longer "Marxist" states (even though China is still partially Marxist), they both have large armed forces, both are aggressive in growing their power and influence. Then there is militant Islam.....
Better to be prepared then to be foolishly unarmed and relying "on the kindness of strangers".
Clint| 4.20.11 @ 8:06PM
Ronald Reagan On Defense Waste:
" During my 1980 campaign, I called federal waste and fraud a national scandal. We knew we could never rebuild America's strength without first controlling the exploding cost of defense programs, and we're doing it. When we took office in 1981, costs had been escalating at an annual rate of 14 percent. Then we began our reforms. And in the last two years, cost increases have fallen to less than 1 percent. We've made huge savings. Each F-18 fighter costs nearly $4 million less today than in 1981. One of our air-to-air missiles costs barely half as much.
Getting control of the defense bureaucracy is no small task. Each year the Defense Department signs hundreds of thousands of contracts. So yes, a horror story will sometimes turn up despite our best efforts. That's why we appointed the first Inspector General in the history of the Defense Department. And virtually every case of fraud or abuse has been uncovered by our Defense Department, our Inspector General. Secretary Weinberger should be praised, not pilloried, for cleaning the skeletons out of the closet. As for those few who have cheated taxpayers or have swindled our Armed Forces with faulty equipment, they are thieves stealing from the arsenal of democracy, and they will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law."