{"id":6567,"date":"2010-08-12T20:58:45","date_gmt":"2010-08-13T00:58:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/?p=6567"},"modified":"2010-08-12T20:58:45","modified_gmt":"2010-08-13T00:58:45","slug":"defense-secretary-gates-taking-heat-for-proposing-common-sense-military-cuts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/6567\/defense-secretary-gates-taking-heat-for-proposing-common-sense-military-cuts\/","title":{"rendered":"Defense Secretary Gates Taking Heat for Proposing Common Sense Military Cuts"},"content":{"rendered":"

Maybe this was one of the reasons Robert Gates decided to stay on as Defense Secretary when Barack Obama became president.\u00a0 Faced with budget deficits and needing funding for two wars, Gates is setting his sights on reducing the waste, fraud and abuse in military bureaucracy and contracting.<\/p>\n

Rest assured, the Gates cuts will not imperil soldiers in the field.\u00a0 In an eye-opening column by Ralph Peters, the Defense Secretary\u2019s war on waste<\/a> is an admirable contribution to the government-wide belt-tightening that needs to be done.\u00a0 Peters highlights five key targets:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. A reduction in the amount of overpaid contractors currently making up 39% of the Defense Department workforce<\/li>\n
  2. Pink slips for an overabundance of senior brass and staff<\/li>\n
  3. Eliminating redundant information technology offices<\/li>\n
  4. Curbing expensive self-studies that provide little value<\/li>\n
  5. Closing the Joint Forces Command, an ineffective inter-branch agency with no mission<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    According to Peters, Gates can prove there\u2019s bite to his bark if he can get JFCOM closed despite the howls from its Virginia-based congressional delegation.<\/p>\n

    Stay tuned.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Maybe this was one of the reasons Robert Gates decided to stay on as Defense Secretary when Barack Obama became president.\u00a0 Faced with budget deficits and needing funding for two wars, Gates is setting his sights on reducing the waste, fraud and abuse in military bureaucracy and contracting. Rest assured, the Gates cuts will not […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[70,59,1696,1697,742,190],"class_list":["post-6567","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-posts","tag-budget","tag-deficit","tag-department-of-defense","tag-fiscal-conservatism","tag-limited-government","tag-robert-gates"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6567","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6567"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6567\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6568,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6567\/revisions\/6568"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6567"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6567"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6567"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}