From here:
The Pentagon plans to retire one of the Navy's 12 aircraft carriers, buy fewer amphibious landing ships for the Marine Corps and delay the development of a costly Army combat system of high-tech arms as part of $60 billion in proposed cuts over the next six years, Congressional and military officials said Wednesday.The proposed reductions, the details of which are still being fine-tuned and which would require Congressional approval, result from White House orders to all federal agencies to cut their spending requests for the 2006 fiscal year budgets, which will be submitted to lawmakers early next year.
Since the November elections, the White House has been under growing pressure to offset mounting deficits and at the same time pay for the unexpectedly high costs of military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, which combined now amount to more than $5 billion a month.
The proposed Pentagon cuts, which include sharply reducing the program for the Air Force's F/A-22 fighter and delaying the purchase of a new Navy destroyer, would for the first time since the Sept. 11 attacks slow the growth in Pentagon spending, which has risen 41 percent in that period, to about $420 billion this year. Military and Congressional officials said the Pentagon was looking to trim up to $10 billion in the 2006 budget alone.
The budget-cutting is likely to foreshadow additional reductions of weapons designed in the cold war and the revamping of America's arsenal as the Pentagon prepares for its quadrennial review of military weapons and equipment to address current and long-term security threats, including the insurgency in Iraq and a possibly resurgent China.
"The services are making decisions about where to make their investments," said a Pentagon spokesman, Eric Ruff, who declined to comment on specific proposed cuts. "As we look ahead to the challenges of the 21st century, it's fair that we look at programs that began two or three decades ago."
Leftists say "Bush is doing nothing about the budget deficit!"
Leftists say "Bush is increasing defense spending in order to starve spending on social programs!"
And Leftists, as usual, are wrong.
The defense budget is being cut, as is federal spending across the board. This is because the President wants to reduce the size of the budget deficit.
Less gov't spending + additional gov't revenue in a growing economy = more money coming in, and less going out.
This will shrink the budget deficit, without raising taxes, or surrendering in the War On Terror.
Conservatives and budget hawks will welcome this. And Leftist Bush-haters will find some way to attack it...
Article comments