The White House has ordered the Pentagon to squeeze almost all growth from its spending over the next five years, which will require eventually shrinking the Army and Marine Corps and seeking controversial increases in the fees paid by for retired, working-age veterans for their health insurance, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said Thursday.
Thursday, January 6, 2011
Cuts at the Pentagon
As I had hoped, the President is using all the heat over the budget as a cover to make cuts in military spending. We'll have to see if the self-proclaimed deficit hawks in the House go along:
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Personally, I would have preferred to see such cuts used to weaken the Air Force, which has been a problem child since before it was created, and whose ongoing ambitions to prove that it should be the supreme service were a factor in the launching of the 2003 Iraq invasion.
According to Tom Ricks, the Air Force hates Gates, because he sees the mission of the military as counter-insurgency warfare and has been trying to reign in their high-tech spending binge for years. The Air Force has seen cuts, too, like curtailing the F-22 fighter.
But you're right, they should take a serious whack at that whole organization.
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