NEWS: Time To Pay The Piper: The Pentagon Proposes $55 Billion Worth Of Program (Most Programs Hit)

With costs rising from a two front war and an economy slow to recover, the Pentagon is preparing to make cuts across the board in its budget. From the Navy�s future destroyer, to the once sacred ballistic missile defense program, every branch will see prized project cut or outright terminated. In total, the proposed cuts would shave more than 55 billion dollars over six years. The navy and the Air Force would be hit the hardest.




Something was going to have to give. The Army has already seen its Crusader and its Comanche programs terminated. The plan in essence sacrifices the future for today and many high profile programs are at risk. However, Rumsfield and Wolfowitz face a increasingly hostile congress and will have to get the plan by them. Some of the systems that have been proposed to be cut and their savings:

Ballistic Missile Defense $5 billion
F/A-22 (96 planes cut) $10.4 billion
Virginia Class SSN (3 cut) $5.3 billion
V-22 Osprey $1.2 billion
C-130J (Cut 63 planes) $4.9 billion

We've spent more than 50 billion dollars on the missle defense system and it doesn't work. Not to many people think it ever will and yet we plan to spend 10 billion a year on it until a new administration decides to stop the corporate welfare to certain defense companies. We need to kill this program where it stands and continue ahead with the much needed fighter and submarine programs. Better-yet, let's spend more money on diplomacy.

I think its safe to say that the current US military could wipe the floor against anything any other country could throw at it. Why keep spending SO MUCH money on furthering an edge thats already vast?

Why not keep the defense budget to maintenance and modest R&D? Funnel the extra money into health care and schools etc and actually create something worth defending.

Not even $ 10 billion per year. Bush's Medicare drug prescription plan will ramp up in 2006 with $ 60 billion.

A little tongue-in-cheek here:

So the US now has to face an economic reality- as in the game of Monopoly(r)- only build what your income will afford. Everyone that has ever played that game knows that without super 'luck' overbuilding causes shortfalls. Repeated shortfalls put you out of the game.

Sorry I have to bring this up Fred but:
As Rome found out, no nation/empire can do everything. Eventually the basis for wealth becomes over used and deteriorates. America, as Rome, can not maintain armies (legions) at every flash point of an ever growing presence (empire) even if there were no challenges to its hegemony. America faces growing coalitions against its position. As Rome faced Macedon so too does America face China. Should China be able to build a coalition as Macedon and Carthage failed to do then America will become isolationist by default. China, Russia, India along with resource rich states such as Indonesia, Iran and the Balkans could (not easily) build a counterweight to American/NAFTA/Iraq.

Throw in a Venezuela (Panama perhaps), Brazil and growing links with Japan and America could find itself in the same position it tried to maintain 100 years back. The EU will scramble for the Balkans for the mineral wealth. With Russia sitting as a counter-weight to this potential grab the EU may end up making concessions as Ptolemaic Egypt did to the Macedonians to counter the rising Rome.

The US must do something. Conquest or commercial deeds to neutralize or gain Iran have to be made so that the Asian land-bridge can be used. Iran sits astride the roads between Afghanistan and Iraq. As Rome slowly devoured the Seleucid Empire (same area) so too is America conquering the ancient area once known as Persia. But America must push past Iraq into the Iranian highlands.

America is left with a horrific future in the Eurasian area. America must combine Alexander and Rome at the same time. If the Asians (including Russia) are able to unify then Genghis II (or Tamerlane) will occur. Iran is next one way or another- the riches of the orient await!

$5 says that if Bush saw that it would become his foreign policy

'Just look at how big the Romans were! They conquered all! VVV!'

Does Bush know how to play the violin?

Bush is looking less and less like a Republican every day--cutting defense spending? I thought that was the realm of the Democrats--at least that is a tenet that Bush/Cheney campaigned on. Didn't these guys get on Kerry's case for voting against Pentagon spending bills and for supporting the elimination of some weapons systems (nevermind the fact that Cheney also supported some of these bills and these claims are omitting facts like the systems were obsolete...)

And now, just a few months later, Bush & Co. are cutting multiple weapons systems and funding. Is this the largest defense spending cut in history--especially when the country is at war? Would that make GWB a hypocrite or a liar (or both)?

Don't get me wrong--I don't think that these cuts are bad. Anything that begins to scrap the ridiculous Ballistic Defense Shield, which is based on fantasy science is a welcome change. And shifting funds to ground troops is a good idea also, but perhaps that is a signal of times to come.

And I'm not calling GWB "Democrat-like" either. I really don't know what to call him, but let's all remember in future election seasons that this proposal took place on a Republican watch.