Budget Deal: Does the Pentagon Really Need An Extra $20 Billion?

[unhappycamper]

http://breakingdefense.com/2013/12/budget-deal-does-the-pentagon-really-need-an-extra-20-billion/



Much of official Washington likes the budget deal struck this week by Sen. Patty Murray and Rep. Paul Ryan, chairs of the two chambers budget committees. No more stupid and debilitating showdowns. No more federal shutdowns. Perhaps Congress can actually do what it is expected to do and pass some spending bills. At least we might get two years of relative political peace. That’s not the view of some reaches of the left and the right. The left fear a resurgent Pentagon feeding deeper at the public trough at a time just when it should be weaned. The Tea Party and its chums fear a larger deficit just as sequestration is really starting to curb the appetitive of the federal beast. William Hartung, a defense expert at the left-leaning Center for International Policy, presents a cogent critique of the new budget deal. Read on. The Editor.

Budget Deal: Does the Pentagon Really Need An Extra $20 Billion?
By William D. Hartung
on December 12, 2013 at 5:00 AM

The deal struck this week by Rep. Paul Ryan and Sen. Patty Murray has been well received by President Obama, House Speaker John Boehner, the defense industry, and many people in the media and the public at large who are tired of Washington’s budgetary gridlock. No one is popping any champagne corks, but there is a widespread feeling that any agreement that can eliminate the uncertainty that has dominated Washington budgetary debates over the past two years is worth supporting.

But the Ryan/Murray deal can be improved. The Congress and the president should rethink the need to give the Pentagon over $20 billion more in fiscal 2014. More than enough money is available under the budgetary caps established in current law to provide a robust and forward-looking defense of the United States without this proposed increase. At roughly $480 billion for the Pentagon budget proper — and nearly $500 billion when nuclear weapons spending at the Department of Energy is factored in — current plans are already about $100 billion per year higher than the Cold War average.

One could argue that we live in a vastly different world than we did during the Cold War, and that there is no reason that we should be spending a similar amount now as we did then. This is absolutely true. The world is considerably safer than it was when the U.S. was faced off against a superpower adversary that had the capability to end life as we know it, and Pentagon spending should reflect that fact.

If anything, traditional military challenges to the United States have been diminishing in the last few years. The Iraq war is over, and the war in Afghanistan is winding down. There is a good chance that Iran’s nuclear weapons program will be stopped through negotiations, not force. Al Qaeda is on the wane, and no foreign terrorist group has been able to launch a significant attack on U.S. soil for over a decade. There are still serious security challenges out there, to be sure, but if we can’t address them with a budget of nearly half a trillion dollars per year there is something seriously wrong with the way we are utilizing our resources.

[Autumn]

1. Yes. They can't waste it if they don't get it.

$20 Billion is not near enough to piss away on a good day.


57% that's fucking disgraceful.

[Mnemosyne]

2. Let them find the $8 trillion they've 'lost'. nt

[pscot]

3. They have 8000* golf courses

and 1050* military bands to maintain. Trombones are expensive and do you have any idea what it costs to transport 80 acres of sod from Virginia to Saudi Arabia or Okinawa?


*If there's any question about these numbers