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http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/177045-panetta-proposed-defense-cuts-would-break-faith-with-troopsSteep cuts to military or diplomatic budgets could undermine national security, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned Tuesday in a joint appearance. The two Cabinet members said cuts that could be triggered under the debt-ceiling deal signed by President Obama earlier this month could hurt U.S. troops while limiting the State Department's ability to engage in diplomacy. " would break faith with troops and their families," Panetta said. "It would literally undercut our ability to provide for the national defense."
Clinton echoed the new Pentagon leader's concerns, warning that budget were casting "a pall" over the U.S. ability to project its security interests.
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http://www.klpw.com/content/defense-secretary-panetta-warns-against-deeper-pentagon-cuts-0
Panetta was asked about news reports that the Pentagon is considering a change in the military’s current retirement package, in which service members who have served 20 years in uniform receive an annual pension worth half their pay.
The Defense Business Board, a DOD advisory panel, has recommended doing away with the current system in favor of a 401k retirement plan that would be collected at the typical retirement age.
Panetta stressed that no decisions had been made with regard to retirement payouts, but said, “it's the kind of thing you have to consider, in terms of retirement reforms in the broad form."
He said such reforms had to be done “in a way that doesn't break faith...with our troops and with their families” that would include grandfathering the benefits of those already serving in uniform.
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http://old.news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20110804/pl_afp/useconomypoliticspublicdebtmilitary
Pentagon chief warns won't accept extra spending cuts
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta warned Thursday he would not accept large military cutbacks under a debt deal, charging the move would weaken the United States faced with rising powers.
Panetta, holding his first formal news conference since taking charge of the Pentagon a month ago, launched a pre-emptive strike as a special committee prepares to slash spending under a last-ditch deal to avert a US debt default.
Panetta, a veteran Democratic Party dealmaker who was once in charge of budgets, said that "God willing" the process would not trigger sweeping cuts under which the Pentagon could lose another $600 billion.
Such cuts "I believe would do real damage to our security, our troops and their families and our military's ability to protect the nation," Panetta said.
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http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/08/01/defense_spending_cut_in_debt_deal_unclear
Defense spending cut in debt deal unclear
Despite the White House's claim that the new debt deal would cut $350 billion from defense spending over the next ten years, there are no specifics in the bill on defense cuts -- and no way to tell what the final cuts will be.
"The deal puts us on track to cut $350 billion from the defense budget over 10 years," the White House said in a fact sheet today. http://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheet-victory-bipartisan-compromise-economy-american-people "These reductions will be implemented based on the outcome of a review of our missions, roles, and capabilities that will reflect the President's commitment to protecting our national security."
But if you look at the text of the bill, there is simply no language on how much the defense budget will actually be cut. What the bill does is set spending caps for "security" spending, which the administration defines as defense, homeland security, intelligence, nuclear weapons, diplomacy, and foreign aid. There's no breakdown that defines which of these agencies get what, so there's no way to be sure that all the cuts would come from "defense."
Moreover, the spending caps are split between "security" and "non-security" discretionary spending only for fiscal 2012 and fiscal 2013. After that, the spending caps don't make any distinctions between budget accounts. In the end, the actual fiscal 2012 spending numbers will be set by congressional appropriators in the House and the Senate, hopefully before the fiscal year ends on Sept. 30.
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http://news.firedoglake.com/2011/08/02/defense-cuts-in-debt-limit-deal-less-than-meets-the-eye
Defense Cuts in Debt Limit Deal Less Than Meets the Eye
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So instead of $350 billion cutting the Pentagon in the first round, you have $350 billion cutting “security.” And remember, the President’s budget already planned for $400 billion in cuts to the Pentagon budget over the next ten years. So defense did at least $50 billion better than expectations.
“This is a good deal for defense when you probe under the numbers,” said Lawrence Korb, a defense expert at the Center for American Progress, a left-leaning research center. “It’s better than what the Defense Department was expecting.” <...>
Korb, who studies defense budgets, said Congress could cut the defense baseline budget by $100 billion annually over the next decade and still spend more than it did during the height of the Cold War, adjusted for inflation. He noted that the baseline defense budget has climbed every year for 13 years, a record increase.
As William Hartung writes, the first-stage proposal would cut Pentagon budgets by less than 1%. Not to mention the fact that these kinds of cuts could be shifted to personnel in the form of health care and pensions for active duty military, not the weapons of war.
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http://my.firedoglake.com/codepink/2011/08/02/enormous-cuts-in-military-spending-read-the-fine-print
Enormous Cuts in Military Spending? Read the Fine Print
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First, the cuts for 2012 are virtually nil. Security spending—which includes the Pentagon, State Department, Homeland Security, part of Veterans Affairs and intelligence spending—will be capped at $684 billion in 2012, a decline of merely $5 billion (less than 1 percent) from this year. Yes, there are potentially far more drastic cuts down the road. In addition to the first $1 trillion in cuts over the next decade, a bipartisan Congressional committee must come up with an additional $1.5 trillion cuts by November — or trigger an automatic across-the-board reduction of $1.2 trillion starting in 2013, half of which would be expected to come from military spending.
However, expect this threat of deep military cuts – if cutting defense by 3 percent a year can be called “deep” when it has grown at a rate of 9 percent over the last decade – to be used as a bargaining chip by Democrats to extract concessions on tax increases from Republicans; don’t hold your breath expecting them to actually materialize. And with House Republicans already pledging to “fight on behalf of our Armed Forces,” by which they mean the military-industrial complex, don’t expect Democrats to put up much of a fight. Even were Obama so inclined, the idea that he will expend political capital on cutting military spending even as he expands the war on terror in Libya, Yemen and Somalia is doubtful, especially with an election looming.
But let’s put aside cynicism and accept the Obama administration at its word. Let’s assume the White House and Congress agree to cut military spending by $350 billion a year over 10 years. While the numbers may sound impressive out of context, that’s like draining an Olympic-sized pool with a glass from your kitchen: you’re going to be at it for awhile. The military budget has ballooned so much over the last decade that even if it was cut in half tomorrow the U.S. would still spend more than it did in 2001.
Indeed, the Obama administration’s proposed military budget for 2012 – the baseline from which future cuts are projected – is at its “highest level since World War II,” according to the non-partisan Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, “surpassing the Cold War peak” set by Ronald Reagan and a Democratic House of Representatives in 1985. Even if, instead of over a decade, the whole, entirely-subject-to-change $350 billion was cut from the defense budget in one fiscal year alone, the U.S. would still lead the globe in military spending, devoting twice as much to guns and bombs as its closest and much more populous rival, China. And that’s without factoring in the cost of any new wars.
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The empiric madness isn't going anywhere, it will take the country down with it........................
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