New Pentagon Plan Would Cut Ground Forces By 100,000

New Pentagon Plan Would Cut Ground Forces By 100,000

www.foxnews.com

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta unveiled a plan Thursday that would cut nearly a half-trillion dollars from the defense budget over the next decade by retiring older planes and ships, delaying some projects and shrinking U.S. ground forces by about 100,000.

The defense spending plan is scheduled to be submitted to Congress as part of the administration's full 2013 budget on Feb. 13.

(visit the link for the full news article)

It's about damned time.

Now granted, this won't ever get approved...

But it's nice to know that it is being talked about.

People, call your local and state reps. Tell them how you feel about this.

Let them know that a decade of war is enough. Time to reign in the war machine and focus on DEFENSE... not aggression...

www.foxnews.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

Yeah just wait till Iran is bombed, then ``we have to cancel all that or the terrorists win``.

No way this gets approved. It's over 10 years. Please. A hell lot of things are gonna happen in the next 10 years.

Well here's an updated article... and it's not all good news...

The Pentagon took the first major step toward shrinking after a decade of war as it announced on Thursday that it wanted to limit pay raises for troops, increase health insurance fees for military retirees and close bases in the United States.

NY Times

I'm ALL FOR shrinking our military spending...

But c'mon... raising health insurance for retirees? It's hard enough to get by as it is for most people...

So, the plan to cut military spending seems to be...

Pay our troops less...

Make our troops pay more for insurance...

And to close bases IN AMERICA instead of abroad.

The first article had such a nice spin to it...

So sad to see the real story coming out...

Originally posted by YouAreLiedTo

It's about damned time.

Now granted, this won't ever get approved...

But it's nice to know that it is being talked about.

People, call your local and state reps. Tell them how you feel about this.

Let them know that a decade of war is enough. Time to reign in the war machine and focus on DEFENSE... not aggression...

Okay...now you have to realize that the way they are spinning this is actually just smoke and mirrors. They are not actually promising to spend less money than they are today...they are only promising to spend less than they previously said they would.

Panetta announced that the administration will request a 2013 budget of $525 billion, plus another $88 billion for operations in Afghanistan. Combined, those totals are about $33 billion less than the Pentagon is spending this year. Panetta said, however, that the Pentagon's base budget will grow to $567 billion in 2017. At that point, the cumulative budgets over five years would be $259 billion less than had been planned before the administration struck a deficit-cutting deal with Congress last summer that requires projected defense spending to be reduced by $487 billion by 2022.

This is their version of decreased spending. Over five years they will actually spend $210 billion more...but they call it a spending cut because it is $259 billion less than they previously said they would spend.

Does anybody still wonder why the U.S. deficit continues to spiral out of control?

One last update to the thread...

Here is the proposed Defense Budget in all it's glory...

Defense Budget

Have at it people...

Completely separate to "operational" or "emergency" budgets, which is what costs the money. This is completely the wrong approach. Give less to veterans and those serving, close bases (make country even weaker), cut more soldiers' jobs (just add to unemployment).

The savings from sacking a few soldiers is nothing compared to buying a continuous supply of missiles to fire from drones and such like, for example. This is exactly what Ron Paul was trying to explain in one of the recent debates. This plan is the worst of both worlds.