Defense Secretary Leon Panetta warns against more cuts in Pentagon budget

Source: Washington Post

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta warned Thursday of dire consequences if the Pentagon is forced to make cuts to its budget beyond the $400 billion in savings planned for the next decade.

“We’re already taking our share of the discretionary cuts as part of this debt-ceiling agreement, and those are going to be tough enough,” Panetta told reporters in his first news conference as defense secretary. “I think anything beyond that would damage our national defense.”

The initial round of Pentagon cuts is part of a debt-reduction package that would slice about $1 trillion from agency budgets over 10 years. A second round of cuts, totaling as much as $1.5 trillion, will be prepared by a bipartisan congressional panel later this year.

Senior Pentagon officials have launched an offensive over the past two days to convince lawmakers that further reductions in Pentagon spending would imperil the country’s security. Instead of slashing defense, Panetta said, the bipartisan panel should rely on tax increases and cuts to nondiscretionary spending, such as Medicare and Social Security, to provide the necessary savings.

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/defense-secretary-leon-panetta-warns-against-more-cuts-in-pentagon-budget/2011/08/04/gIQAWM8AvI_story.html

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Our military spending needs to be cut in half, at least - right now.

If we had Leon's snout full of Nickels we could afford three more wars and 10 more tax cuts for Loen's friends in the MIC.

LEON wants to starve granny and make dummies out of every school kid in the country. Meanwhile our Interstate highways look more like tank trails every day.

GI broom and GI mop,
GI wish this shit would stop!

with this long running 'save the war bucks' PR blitz. That's because I don't think we should keep the MIC gravy train going while we slash our domestic social programs.

Mr. BUYpartisanship sounds just like Rummy and the PNAC crew.

Reading the comments at the article I linked in the OP. Some warmonger wingnut (2012frank) weighed in and people are taking him to the woodshed, bigtime. Hee hee.

Almost everyone's sentiment there is similar to ours.

The next highest number from one of our Western democracy allies is 2.7% by the United Kingdom. Other allies are Germany at 1.4%, France at 2.5%, Japan at 1%, Canada at 1.5%.

Obviously by definition we are spending too much money. The budget should be no higher than 2.5% of GDP. What exactly are we protecting?

Ask your friends who don't want to cut defense what the per capita number for defense spending is for adults. I calculate about $3K. Then ask them how much they paid in federal taxes per adult last year.

Not that it justifies the 4.7%.

The Chinese will have a carrier soon, a refurbished diesel ship they bought from Ukraine. They won't have a nuclear carrier for another decade. We have 11 nuclear supercarriers. I would think 5 would be plenty, but probably still too many.

I'm sure we will, unfortunately. This is the last (and certainly the worst) form of acceptable pork.

America is being destroyed by out of control military spending and those bastards know it. There is no logic to spending 700 billion dollars on defense and war this year. IT IS INSANE!

Fucking multi-millionaires.

At least.

i know he gets a big security briefing when he gets there. i'm sure they show him pictures of dead babies, raped women and exploded buddhas. i'm sure they show him little vials of sugar and tell him it is anthrax, and grainy images of rectangles in the sand and tell him they are mobile weapons labs. then what? what is the kicker that they must be throwing in there to scare presidents, and members of congress, to make them think we need to be ready to wipe the rest of humanity off the face of the earth and make it uninhabitable in the process.

like this particular occupant of the white house or not, they sway nearly everyone. :wtf:

and not worthy to be listened to