Super Cuts! Military Budget, Not Social Spending, Prompts Media Concern

[marmar]

Published on Friday, January 13, 2012 by [font color="red"]Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR)[/font]
Super Cuts! Military Budget, Not Social Spending, Prompts Media Concern

by Peter Hart


The failure of the Congressional “supercommittee” to come up with a $1.2 trillion, 10-year deficit reduction plan means that automatic “trigger” cuts might take place in discretionary spending—roughly half of which is supposed to come from the military budget. Corporate media have given extensive time to panicked warnings about the dangerous impact of military cuts, but made little mention of the effects of cutting other spending.

Under the “trigger” plan, the military budget is supposed to be reduced by almost $600 billion over the next decade—a move Republican politicians have vowed to block. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has been quoted widely about this “catastrophic” possibility that would “tear a seam in the nation’s defenses,” decrying the reliance on a “crazy doomsday mechanism” and “a goofy meat-ax approach” (Washington Post, 11/4/11).

That message has been heard—and repeated—across the media. A Washington Post editorial (11/7/11) called the potential military cuts “an unconscionable act of political irresponsibility.” ABC correspondent Jack Tapper (11/22/11) talked about “draconian cuts to the Pentagon budget.”

On the CBS Evening News (11/22/11), Pentagon correspondent David Martin discussed Panetta’s dire letter to Congress before reporting that the “across-the-board cuts would, according to the Pentagon, mean the loss of a million or more jobs in the defense industry, increasing unemployment by one percent.” Those jobs figures have been challenged by experts outside the Pentagon (CNN.com, 11/3/11). ..................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/01/13

[soryang]

1. Don't worry another war will fix this problem

I expect another substantial war to start in the spring.