Bending to Military Contractors

[xchrom]

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/12/31-3


An EA-18G Growler taxis off the flightline at Naval Air Facility Misawa, Japan, on Dec. 28, 2012. (Defense Department photo by Petty Officer 1st Class Kenneth G. TakadaClose)

The strength of the military-industrial complex (MIC) was made readily apparent by President Barack Obama’s latest proposal to House Speaker John Boehner to avoid the fiscal cliff. Other than raising taxes on rich Americans, Republicans have been most horrified by the fiscal cliff’s cuts in defense spending. With Obama’s most recent proposal, Republicans can relax because even those vastly overstated cuts will be eviscerated

Obama is only proposing $100 billion in defense reductions over a 10-year period from 2013 to 2022 — a miniscule $10 billion per year — and that will thus be the ceiling on any austerity in defense. Obama’s capitulation on defense cuts merely illustrates the dirty little secret: Democrats, in addition to Republicans, have been long co-opted by the MIC.

Going over the fiscal cliff would have cut defense $550 billion over 10 years, or $55 billion per year. So in the President’s latest proposal, defense cuts are only about 18 percent of what they would have been under the cliff’s automatic cuts.

But of course, even such “draconian” cuts — as the media has hyped them — were something of an illusion. In Washington speak, a budget reduction is usually not what the average person would call a cut. The average $55 billion cut was not from the level of the base defense budget of $552 billion in 2011 (the base budget does not include “emergency” supplemental spending for overseas military operations that have been going on for years); it was from the defense budget increased every year for inflation.

[leveymg]

1. A minor trim to a (understated) defense budget that's been vastly increased over the past decade.

FY 2002 Defense Budget $329 Billion
usgovinfo.about.com/library/weekly/aa062601b.htm
Jun 26, 2001 – The Department of Defense has reported it will request a total of $329 billion in the 2002 federal budget. The amended request adds over over ...

(FY 2012) Defense Budget Tops $600B - publicintegrity.org
www.publicintegrity.org/
Pentagon's bad accounting may cost agency taxpayers $1 billion

[xchrom]

2. +1

[leftstreet]

3. DURec

[DirkGently]

4. Defense spending is the obvious giant spending cut we need.

... that no one, including the Obama administration, is willing to talk about seriously.

[SQUEE]

5. I think the solution here is a few simple yet drastic changes

First, ONE military, do away with the duplication of effort and resources inherent in a 4/5 branch military. Why do we need 3 basic battle uniforms, numerous versions of our basic issue rifle, and 3 separate COCs (Navy and USMC are one Department). I grew up a Marine brat and served in 3 very storied divisions in the Army, I respect the lineage and traditions, but times change and if we are ever going to reduce our fawning and adulation of the military, lets start with the romanticizing of war, and all that goes with it.

2, Give up on the idea of global power projection. We do not need nor can we afford to continue to pay for other countries defense, sorry Korea, Japan, Iceland and hardest for me.. Israel.. your on your own.
Also reduce our number of Carrier Battle groups to 5, this will allow for 1 CVN to be in major refitting, and the other 4 to be in fleet rotation.

NATIONALIZE the production of war materials. remove the profit motive to defense and castrate the MIC. This seems to be the most no brainer, it is beyond moronic to trust a multinational corporation with our security, and to follow one of Murphy's Laws of Combat, to trust your life to equipment made by the lowest bidder, we owe our sons and daughters far better.

[DirkGently]

6. That last one would be the biggest change, and the hardest

to pull off.

I think we can immediately pull back our adventures abroad. I understand why the U.S. attempts to control the Middle East, but we can't, and we're not helping ourselves or anyone else the way we're going about it.

More diplomacy. More economic pressure. Less bang-bang.

[SQUEE]

7. Soft power projection has disapeared from US Diplomacy

Imagine if only 5% of the military budget was fed to International aid and programs like the Peace Corps.