Insignificant and Deceptive Pentagon Cuts: How Many More Trillions for the Pentagon?

[Better Believe It]

October 25, 2010

Insignificant and Deceptive Cuts
How Many More Trillions for the Pentagon?
By WINSLOW T. WHEELER

Gates started in April 2009 a series of weapon program terminations and so called Pentagon reforms. He announced the defense budget "gusher" had been turned off. Yet the number of major defense acquisition programs he has eliminated is only down to 87 programs, costing $1.6 trillion, from 91 programs - costing $1.6 trillion.

His gusher-off budget for the next 10 years would grow 1 percent each year, plus inflation, to $735 billion in 2020 from $554 billion in 2010 - a 33 percent compounded increase adding another trillion dollars.

Gates' efficiency reforms have been all too modest. His plan to "save" $102 billion would be over 5 years. The money is not being saved: It is being transferred inside the Pentagon budget. Even if the $102 billion were real savings, it is only 3 percent of the planned five-year total, or $3.1 trillion.

The House and Senate Appropriations Committees have added their own eyewash by recommending "cuts" of $7 billion and $8 billion, respectively, in the 2011 DOD budget. But looking at the details, it is clear that much of these "savings" are just shifts from one year to the next.

There are also some delays in programs - which actually make them more expensive later - and there are cancelled "unobligated expenditures" - which merely moves money from past years to future years. After these "cuts," 2011 is an $11-billion increase over 2010.

Read the full article at:

http://www.counterpunch.org/wheeler10252010.html

[Karmadillo]

1. How many trillions you got?

nt

[Better Believe It]

2. Hold on .... give me a minute to check.

:)

[Panaconda]

3. K&R for that

[blindpig]

4. k&r

The world would be a much better place if the Pentagon budget was cut by 90%.

[DCKit]

5. I saw him in an interview last week and was astounded.

He stated (clearly) that his plan to cut the budget is to simply privatize services.

When has privatization ever saved a penny?

Gates doesn't understand the meaning of the word "cut".