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Posts Tagged ‘Military Budget’
November 16th, 2011 at 2:45 pm
Supercommittee One Week Away From Implosion
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Begin the countdown. November 23 — one week from today — is the deadline for the bipartisan, bicameral congressional “supercommittee” to deliver its plan to cut $1.2 trillion from the federal deficit. Only problem? No one expects it to happen. From today’s Washington Post:

White House officials are quietly bracing for “supercommittee” failure, with advisers privately saying they are pessimistic that the 12-member Congressional panel will find a way to cut $1.2 trillion from the deficit as required…

Obama has stopped short of issuing a blanket veto threat if the committee tries to undo the severe cuts that would take effect in 2013 if an agreement is not reached. Obama has simply said that Congress “must not shirk its responsibilities” and, in a news conference from Hawaii, said he would not comment on the potential for a veto.

Oh, so now it’s Congress that’s shirking its responsibilities? Where was President Obama’s veto pen when more than $4.2 trillion was being added to the federal debt under his watch (more than the total federal debt from George Washington to George H.W. Bush)? And if the role of Congress is so important, why leave the task of debt reduction to a dozen congressmen out of a body of 535? And why keep members from being able to so much as amend the proposal, making the compromise that will be necessary for such a grand bargain that much harder to ascertain?

The answer, of course, is that this process has been intended all along to grease the skids for tax increases. And by threatening the welfare of the men and women of the U.S. military (failing to pass a plan would result in automatic cuts to the Pentagon’s budget that could add up to over $1 trillion), liberals are hoping they can force conservatives’ hand.

The supecommittee process deserves to end in failure. The automatic spending cuts deserve to be overridden by Congress, as does any veto that President Obama may subsequently issue. And every member of the legislative branch who helped midwife the president’s record-breaking debt deserves a one-way ticket home.

September 26th, 2011 at 7:55 pm
Congressional Analysis Shows Pending Pentagon Cuts Would Gut National Defense
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In my column last week, I detailed the devastation that the Pentagon will be in for should the bipartisan congressional “supercommittee” not enact major debt reduction by early next year. While paring back the size of the federal government is essential, the Obama Administration was unspeakably reckless in allowing defense cuts that could reach over $1 trillion to be triggered automatically should the committee fail to act.

The staff of the House Armed Services Committee has now released their analysis of the proposed reductions and, according to a report in Politico, the outcomes could be every bit as dire as warned:

The analysis notes that the Navy would need to take two aircraft carrier battle groups out of service and the Air Force would lose a third of its fighters. The Marine Corps would no longer be able to maintain forward-deployed amphibious forces around the world. New weapons systems, such as the Navy and Marine Corps’ versions of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, would be canceled. The U.S. nuclear arsenal would be drastically reduced and modernization plans scrapped.

Aside from the troop cuts, there would also be massive layoffs of Pentagon civilian employees and the elimination of many jobs in the defense industry, according to the analysis.

The Obama Administration never runs out of supplicants. Whether it’s labor unions, “green energy” firms, or corporate friends who can get a waiver from Obamacare in the blink of an eye, there seems to be no one that the administration doesn’t have unlimited cash available for on an on-demand basis. No one, that is, except the men and women of the United States military.