Wall Street Pain Coming to Military

[unhappycamper]

Wall Street Pain Coming to Military
November 06, 2008
New York Times

WASHINGTON — After years of unfettered growth in military budgets, Defense Department planners, top commanders and weapons manufacturers now say they are almost certain that the financial meltdown will have a serious impact on future Pentagon spending.

Across the military services, deep apprehension has led to closed-door meetings and detailed calculations in anticipation of potential cuts. Civilian and military budget planners concede that they are already analyzing worst-case contingency spending plans that would freeze or slash their overall budgets.

The obvious targets for savings would be expensive new arms programs, which have racked up cost overruns of at least $300 billion for the top 75 weapons systems, according to the Government Accountability Office. Congressional budget experts say likely targets for reductions are the Army’s plans for fielding advanced combat systems, the Air Force’s Joint Strike Fighter, the Navy’s new destroyer and the ground-based missile defense system.

Even before the crisis on Wall Street, senior Pentagon officials were anticipating little appetite for growth in military spending after seven years of war. But the question of how to pay for national security now looms as a significant challenge for the next president, at a time when the Pentagon’s annual base budget for standard operations has reached more than $500 billion, the highest level since World War II when adjusted for inflation.

On top of that figure, supplemental spending for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan has topped $100 billion each year, frustrating Republicans as well as Democrats in Congress. In all, the Defense Department now accounts for half of the government’s total discretionary spending, and Pentagon and military officials fear it could be the choice for major cuts to pay the rest of the government’s bills.


Rest of article at: http://www.military.com/news/article/wall-street-pain-coming-to-military.html



uhc comment: $500 billion my ass. The current 2009 military budget is nearly one trillion ( $1,000,000,000,000 ) dollars.

[blue sky at night]

1. I can hardly contain my grief for these bastards.....

Poor Babies, maybe they could have a carwash or a bakesale.................

[itsrobert]

2. A lot of people employed by the Defense Contrators

A lot of good paying jobs maybe lost. A lot of union members.

[But....]

3. True....

But also a lot of boated CEO salaries and bonuses too. Kind of a two edge sword ehn?

[blue sky at night]

4. a lot of money wasted...

we need to change......CHANGE!!!!!!!!!!

Lets spend our money on LIFE not death.

the death cult is on it's way out now, so it is time to retrain and do something else.

[Bigmack]

5. But.... but... but...

How will we be able to keep building the subs with no mission?

And the "armored" vehicles that a non-army can explode like tin cans?

And the hi-tech systems that enable us to pinpoint bomb those Afghan civilians?

And the 750 overseas bases so vital to ... whatever?

Deep, dark, bloated military :sarcasm: intended.