Lawmakers Call For Cuts In Military Spending

[laughingliberal]

As the budget crisis worsens, some lawmakers are looking where others dare not - at defense spending. In a letter to the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, lawmakers from both sides of the isle despaired at "the apparent absence of discussion about the efficacy, the extent, and cost of overseas U.S. military commitments."

The statement authored by Reps. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), Ron Paul (R-Texas), Walter B. Jones (R-N.C.) and Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) asked commissioners to scale back America's global military commitments. The effort comes just weeks after Frank appointed his own bipartisan commission to look at ways to reduce America's bloated military budget.

"At a time when our nation is facing serious economic problems, when it is borrowing trillions of dollars from foreign nations of varying degrees of friendliness, and it must deal with the rising costs of tens of millions of retiring baby boomers, we believe meaningful deficit reduction requires that no element of existing federal spending can be excluded from consideration," wrote the congressmen in their letter to the Commission. "So while we have differing political views and party affiliations, we are united in the belief that your Commission must rethink the nature and scope of every category of federal spending."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/27/lawmakers-call-for-cuts-i_n_592686.html

I like this a lot better than the Cat Food Commission.

[Swamp Rat]

1. IT'S ABOUT GODDAMN TIME!!!

Cut the fucking military budget in HALF!!!

:kick:

[laughingliberal]

5. +1000 nt

[Flaneur]

2. It's long past time.

[Rex]

3. What? Rome can't pay the army anymore?

Oh dear, I don't know what is more scary - the fact that it took 12 years for anyone to notice or that no one cared that A HAMMER cost 500 DOLLARS each back in the 1980 under Ronald Reagan (thanks buddy).

[aquart]

4. How about ending a couple of wars?

The length of these idiocies is ridiculous.

[laughingliberal]

6. That would be a great start. nt

[Sherman A1]

7. +1000

It really is far past time to do this. As I was reading in another thread a week ago. They will tell you "that Social Security is running out of money, they will never tell you that the Pentagon is running out of money, they will just give it more."

Cut Defense Spending by 50%!!!! Put people to work developing and installing green energy methods (solar, wind, green roof, etc), help people do such things as install home gardens, compost bins and rain barrels where they can be installed, rebuild our infrastructure of crumbling sewers, bridges, electric grids. Put more money into national, state & local parks!

Lower the retirement age to create job openings for our younger generation if necessary.

That would be the real patriotic thing to do :patriot:

[BrklynLiberal]

8. Please please please..cut military spending the way they have cut aid to education, and

every other socially beneficial outlay...

[NNN0LHI]

9. I bet this idea doesn't catch on. Walter B. "freedom fries" Jones (R-N.C.)

[unhappycamper]

10. I'm leaning towards a 70% military budget cut.

When dubya took over on 2000, the military budget was $302 billion. It's been hovering around a trillion dollars a year for the last few years.

I would make them fully fund the Veterans Administration, and give our vets lifetime PTSD and TBI benefits. Whatever is left they can spend on war toys.

In a somewhat ironic twist, the thread before this one was: Senate Approves $60 Billion For War, While House Cuts $24 Billion For Unemployed Workers And State A.

Guns or butter, people. Guns or butter.