Five myths about defense spending

[Navy1960]

Defense spending is a massive part of our federal budget - and a cause of equally massive debate, whether in wartime or in peace. With fiscal pressures rising, Defense Secretary Robert Gates has detailed a reprioritization of Pentagon resources and a $78 billion reduction in planned defense spending over the next five years. But he has also argued that "when it comes to the deficit, the Department of Defense is not the problem." Still, the $720 billion defense budget is a very large share of federal discretionary spending - more than half in 2010.
Five myths about defense spending


Kentucky U.S. Senator Rand Paul said Monday that he supports cuts to defense spending, breaking ranks with Republican leaders, many of whom have opposed such cuts.

“There is a compromise, but the compromise is not to raise taxes,” Mr. Paul said in an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union. “The compromise is for conservatives to admit that the military budget is going to have to be cut.”

Sen. Rand Paul calls for cuts to defense spending | The State Column

While we all can admit that spending is out of control and it's among the many issues we face as a nation. For the last several years the DoD's budget has become in many ways a cash cow for contractors and less so enhancing capabilities to the Warfighter. Our nation fought two wars and the Cold War on 2/3's the budget the DoD runs on now and our Defense budget represents almost the entire amount of Defense Spending for the rest of the world. It's high time that nations that are fully capable to defend themselves do so at their expense not only in terms of money but in terms of their young men and women as well. We are engaged in Iraq and Afghanistan and have been for years at the cost of thousands dead and even more thousands wounded and billions upon billions spent for a ZERO sum gain. It's about time someone had the courage to disengage from those area's and disconnect the DoD from contractors that use the Military as an ATM machine and spend the taxpayers money in a wise manner as well as deliver to the warfighter whats needed.

 

[Mr. Shaman]

It's about time someone had the courage to disengage from those area's and disconnect the DoD from contractors that use the Military as an ATM machine and spend the taxpayers money in a wise manner as well as deliver to the warfighter whats needed.

....One more grand example of down-side of Allowing The Marketplace To Regulate Itself.​

"As pressures mounted in Iraq and Afghanistan, the military retreated from its ambitions for multibillion-dollar, technologically superior systems. Instead, it was forced to make better use of tried-and-true equipment.

For almost a decade, the Defense Department saw its budgets boom but didn’t make the kind of technological strides that seemed possible.

“Since 9/11, a near doubling of the Pentagon’s modernization accounts — more than $700 billion over 10 years in new spending on procurement, research and development — has resulted in relatively modest gains in actual military capability,” Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said in an address last week."

"Taps"-Time For The
Cheney/Rumsfeld Military​

 

[dblack]

....One more grand example of down-side of Allowing The Marketplace To Regulate Itself.​

How does this issue have anything to do with market regulation??

 

[Mad Scientist]

....One more grand example of down-side of Allowing The Marketplace To Regulate Itself.​

How does this issue have anything to do with market regulation??

Sham-Man doesn't know the difference between Free Market principles and Government-Corporate Fascism. And probably never will.

 

[Mr. Shaman]

....One more grand example of down-side of Allowing The Marketplace To Regulate Itself.​

How does this issue have anything to do with market regulation??

You mean....like....the logic in letting them run-free, in Iraq????

​

"When U.S. troops entered Baghdad in the spring of 2003, there was no electricity, widespread looting and little evidence of postwar planning. With the American military stretched to the limit, the Pentagon set up the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) to govern the country under Ambassador Paul Bremer, who began hiring private companies to secure and rebuild the country.

There were no banks or wire transfers to pay them, no bean counters to keep track of the money. Just vaults and footlockers stuffed with billions of dollars in cash.

"Fresh, new, crisp, unspent, just-printed $100 bills. It was the Wild West," recalls Frank Willis, who was the No. 2 man at the Coalition Provisional Authority's Ministry of Transportation.

The money was a mixture of Iraqi oil revenues, war booty and U.S. government funds earmarked for the coalition authority. Whenever cash was needed, someone went down to the vault with a wheelbarrow or gunny sacks.

"Those are $100,000 bricks of $100 bills and that's $2 million there," Willis explains, looking at a photo of brick-shaped stacks of money wrapped in plastic. "This, in fact, is a payment that we made on the 1st of August to a company called Custer Battles."

Willis says the bricks of money were also sometimes referred to as footballs, "… because we passed them around in little pickup games in our office," he says laughing.

Asked if he has any evidence that the accounting system was a little loose, Willis says, "I would describe it as nonexistent."

Billion$ Wasted In Iraq​

 

[editec]

The DoD budget is a porkbarrel and our foreign policy is DESIGNED to rationalize it.