Pentagon budget slashes Army size to smallest since World War II due to spending caps
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/02/24/pentagon-budget-slashes-army-size-to-smallest-since-world-war-ii-due-to-spending-caps/
Pentagon budget slashes Army size to smallest since World War II due to spending caps
By Reuters
Monday, February 24, 2014 14:04 EST
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Pentagon said on Monday it would slash the Army to pre-World War Two levels, eliminate the popular A-10 aircraft and reduce military benefits in order to meet 2015 spending caps, setting up an election-year fight with Congress over defense priorities.
Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, discussing the Pentagon’s plan for meeting its new spending caps ahead of the formal budget presentation on March 4, advanced a number of ideas that have been attempted in the past but rejected by Congress or are likely to be unpopular in a congressional election year.
As the United States winds down the war in Afghanistan and looks to cut billions in defense spending, the Pentagon plans to continue shifting its focus to the Asia-Pacific and will no longer need a land Army of the size currently planned, Hagel said.
The department plans to reduce the size of the Army to between 440,000 and 450,000 soldiers, he said. The Army is currently about 520,000 soldiers and had been planning to draw down to about 490,000 in the coming year.
[i[]unhappycamper comment: It's a start towards getting out of the war-making business.
BUT you can bet your sweet ass these guys need to replace all the expensive equipment they wore out during 12 years of occupation. And the plan is to replace all that expensive worn out equipment with more expensive new equipment.
Cutting manpower: good start
Cutting equipment dollars: will actually start to reduce the annual $$$ we spend on this crap.
= new reply since forum marked as read
12 years of occupations wore out our military and their equipment. As well as maxing out our National Credit Card.
As you point out - it's about jobs. The MIC has made it a point to have every state get a piece of the jobs action to build this crap. Somehow we need to transition to jobs NOT in the MIC. Of course Lockheed, Northrup, Boeing et all will scream bloody murder They will lean on congresscritters ( like Elizabeth Warren 
and Bernie Saunders ) to keep the bucks flowing in. And folks like Bernie and Elizabeth will vote for those jobs.
When money cannot get you elected, they will stop chasing money all the time. As it is, they are one-and-all slaves to kickbacks ("political contributions"
from big money. There have been numerous ineffective attempts to curtail the influence of money on the supply side, going after donors, but those get thwarted almost as soon as announced.
When all money spent on elections is public, by law, and politicans can go to jail for taking "contributions", you may then see some decline in the graft and corruption in our public decision processes.