What are the 'cuts to the military' when we go 'over the cliff'?

[SHRED]

Defense contractors?
Benefits for those serving?

[ProgressiveProfessor]

1. Right now it looks to be furloughs for civilians at a minimum

Existing contracts would not be impacted immediately since decreases in scope or termination are negotiated. UCAs (Unilateral contract actions) are quite rare.

Long term is TBD. The President has declared that those in uniform will not be impacted, but I don't see how that can be over the long term, at least indirectly.

[el_bryanto]

2. Well - I think nobody expects it to be long term - if there is a risk of impacting those in uniform

some sort of deal will be arrived at.

Bryant

[AldoLeopold]

3. Its 7% I believe but that's all I think I know

Dunno the categories. Might be Pentagon's discretion.

[Recursion]

4. They're pretty big. The House passed a measure undoing a lot of them,

but the Senate isn't willing to touch that, yet.

[flamingdem]

6. As Howard Dean said

this is our chance to reduce the military, maybe the only one and one silver lining of the fiscal cliff.

Of course since we're all "patriotic" they'll be undone for the most part, sigh.

[sendero]

5. Defense..

.... even though it is the most bloated and wasteful item in the budget, will not get cut at all. Wait and see.

[flamingdem]

7. I just responded with a similar sentiment

as usual congress cretins will vote to maintain wasteful military spending so they look "patriotic".

[Recursion]

9. Simpson-Bowles assumed bigger defense cuts even than the sequester

And bigger tax increases than anything Obama has asked for

Weird how that was the squishy centrist position only a year or so ago (though from what I can tell, nobody who now supports Simpson-Bowles actually read it).

[99Forever]

8. They won't be nearly enough, nor..

... will they happen. All members of our Ruling Elite Class feed at that trough.

Sacrifice is for the little people.

[muriel_volestrangler]

10. 10% on discretionary defense spending

CBO estimates that, if no legislation originating from the deficit reduction committee was enacted, the automatic enforcement process specified in the Budget Control Act would produce the following results between 2013 and 2021:

Reductions ranging from 10.0 percent (in 2013) to 8.5 percent (in 2021) in the caps on new discretionary appropriations for defense programs, yielding total outlay savings of $454 billion.
...
Reductions ranging from 10.0 percent (in 2013) to 8.5 percent (in 2021) in mandatory budgetary resources for nonexempt defense programs, generating savings of about $0.1 billion.

http://www.cbo.gov/latest/Budget/Sequestration-Reports

If they want somewhere to cut, they could try the areas the Pentagon didn't even want to spend money on, but Congress told them to anyway:

The far-reaching policy bill that covers the cost of ships, aircraft, weapons and military personnel would authorize $528 billion for the Defense Department's base budget, $17 billion for defense and nuclear programs in the Energy Department and $88.5 billion for the war in Afghanistan.

The bill is $1.7 billion more than Obama requested.
...
Specifically, the bill spares a version of the Global Hawk unmanned aircraft, includes upgrades for tanks and money for armored vehicles.

In a speech this week, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta criticized the pressure on the Pentagon to keep weapons that it doesn't want. "Aircraft, ships, tanks, bases, even those that have outlived their usefulness, have a natural political constituency. Readiness does not," Panetta said.
...
Panetta said members of the House and Senate "diverted about $74 billion of what we asked for in savings in our proposed budget to the Congress, and they diverted them to other areas that, frankly, we don't need."

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=167717958