Barney Frank to Obama: Cut Military Spending

[bdamomma]

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2009/02/barney-frank-obama-cut-military-spending

Just a snip of the article.

Representative Barney Frank is one of the most powerful Democrats in the House of Representatives. As chairman of the Financial Services Committee, he's overseeing the spending of hundreds of billions of dollars to bailout Wall Street and stave off the mortgage crisis. The White House needs him, and he's been a dependable ally so far. Now he's leaning on President Barack Obama to cut the Pentagon budget.



Right on Barney Frank.

[leftstreet]

1. excellent snip >

Acknowledging that Obama does plan to save hundreds of billions of dollars by withdrawing from Iraq, Frank said the President must go further and take big whacks at big-ticket military projects. He pointed to programs like the Air Force's F-22 fighter, the Osprey troop transport, and missile defense as expensive, unnecessary Cold War-era boondoggles.

He singled out missile defense in Eastern Europe as a particularly wasteful use of American taxpayers' money. "I will confess that I am not a regular reader of Iranian-issued fatwahs," Frank quipped. "And probably one of the ones I missed was the one where they threatened devastation against Prague. We plan to spend several billion dollars to protect the Czech Republic against Iran. That's either a great waste of money or a very belated way to make up for Munich."

He has a way with words.

[grantcart]

2. Except it should be phrased - cut military waste

Even people in the military know that there is a lot of waste on unnecessary weapon systems.

[maxsolomon]

4. even if you cut out all the waste

i'd still say cut. the MIC must be brought to heel.

we need a defensive military, not one that so large that it tempts us into offensively projecting our power around the globe.

BTW, leaving 50K personnel in iraq after 19 months is not a withdrawal. GTFO. 100%.

[ORDagnabbit]

8. screw that...cut the military in half and stop this fricken empire building

[ieoeja]

11. If you believe it is a waste of time having such a large military ...

... then wouldn't shrinking the military be cutting waste?

When Democrats vote against a tax decrease, Republicans accuse us of voting to raise taxes. My verbage on cutting waste is a hell of a lot more accurate than the Republicans framing on taxes.

Though I must admit I rather like the Republican frame on taxes right now. 100% of House Republicans didn't just vote against the stimulus, and thereby the tax cuts within that stimulus bill. They voted to raise taxes according to their very own definition of a tax increase.

[biopowertoday]

3. hey, WE ARE the grassroots. get buzy calling

your Congress people--all of them.

Barney et all are up against the odds (read below)


http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2009/02/barney-frank-obama-cut-military-spending

............Acknowledging that Obama does plan to save hundreds of billions of dollars by withdrawing from Iraq, Frank said the President must go further and take big whacks at big-ticket military projects. He pointed to programs like the Air Force's F-22 fighter, the Osprey troop transport, and missile defense as expensive, unnecessary Cold War-era boondoggles. He singled out missile defense in Eastern Europe as a particularly wasteful use of American taxpayers' money. "I will confess that I am not a regular reader of Iranian-issued fatwahs," Frank quipped. "And probably one of the ones I missed was the one where they threatened devastation against Prague. We plan to spend several billion dollars to protect the Czech Republic against Iran. That's either a great waste of money or a very belated way to make up for Munich."

Other House liberals, including Reps. Lynn Woolsey (D-Calif.), Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), and Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio), joined Frank's call. They noted that having the influential and sharp-tongued Frank leading the effort would help them in the always-tough battle against Pentagon waste.

But don't look to Congress to reduce military spending on its own, Frank said: "Left entirely on our own, the Congress will not do the cuts in the military budget that ought to be there." Military spending cuts will only come, he said, if there's grassroots pressure for them.

Frank noted that in the Pentagon budget fight he's up against some heavy hitting Democrats—including Rep. Ike Skelton (D-Mo.) and Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), who chair the House and Senate Armed Services committees, respectively, and who "are not where I am" on military spending. ..................

[Kolesar]

13. I will! eom

[Mari333]

5. cut it down to nothing

its whats bankrupting this country.

[Lex]

6. ** an excellent visual aid on how much we spend on the military **

at this link: http://www.truemajorityaction.org/oreos/

It's stunning.

[bdamomma]

10. we are the only country who puts so much money into the killing machine.

[chill_wind]

12. That's an excellent link. Thanks. My other indispensable source

of fact and visuals about military spending, war time spending, other budget spending, tradeoffs etc is in my sig line.

[Alias Dictus Tyrant]

17. My only objection...

...to that link is that the representation is spending is disingenuous in that it ignores how funding is structured.

For example, we spend more on education than on defense in the US, they just forget to point out the fact that education funding is largely a State expenditure. Or to put it another way, if they ran the same budget argument in the US a matter of decades earlier it would show zero spending on education. Defense is a disproportionately large part of the Federal discretionary spending because it is just about the only thing the States do not mostly pay for themselves.

The breakdown of Federal expenditures is appalling, but I would hesitate to use deceptive arguments as they can damage the credibility of people making them and the American people will just tune it out. I see this happen all the time with climate change, where well-meaning but basically ignorant people spew enough nonsense that it makes it very hard to make the legitimate case; people who could otherwise be sold simply assume that because some people are speaking nonsense that everyone who agrees with their conclusions is also speaking nonsense. We have to take the credibility high ground. Or at least I do.

[Lex]

18. Yeah, well, duly noted. Your profile is disabled but I'm betting

I should welcome you to DU.

[Greyhound]

7. "Official" budget + 2 wars = stimulus.

What else is there to say? We can't cut it all, but so much of it is nothing but corporate welfare that is better spent putting people to work doing things that have a continued benefit.

[Alias Dictus Tyrant]

9. Makes no sense

This is proposal only makes sense if we actually targeted military expenditures that were wasteful. The F-22 is an exceedingly cost-efficient aircraft, the development and acquisition cost being completely amortized by the reduced operational expenses versus existing planes in less than ten years; counter-intuitively, most new weapon systems are cheaper than maintaining existing systems due to substantially superior operational efficiency. This policy of new weapon systems paying for their development and procurement by reduced maintenance and operational expenses has been in place since at least the late 1980s. Ironically, if we are going to have a military at all new weapon system development usually saves money over the long term. Better an extremely fuel efficient and easy to maintain F-22 than a gas-guzzling and high-maintenance F-15. We usually pay far more in OpEx than CapEx.

The ballistic missile defense is another area that is grossly misunderstood by many people with strong opinions. Ballistic missile defense and basic air defense have been converging for decades and are essentially the same systems today, built with the same technology. The AIM-9X Sidewinder uses the same guidance platform as exo-atmospheric missile interceptors, and as was demonstrated not that long ago, single surface-to-air missile platforms are now capable of hitting everything from low flying aircraft to objects in space. Ignoring that ballistic missile defense technology works very well (some of the rocket motors, on the other hand, are dicier) and that there are few plausible scenarios where it would actually be useful, one cannot escape the fact that these exact same systems are also anti-aircraft platforms as well. You cannot easily get rid of ABM tech without throwing the anti-aircraft baby out with that bath water. Convergence on single-system air defenses is ultimately supposed to save a lot of money by reducing the proliferation of special purpose air defense platforms.


There is plenty of wasteful defense spending, starting with the myriad of overseas deployments, but let's actually focus on that rather than the pet ideological bugaboos of people that understand nothing of military weapon systems. I will take efficient and effective, please.

[Raster]

14. For the love of gawd...what's wrong? Couldn't log in over at "Military Monthly?"

Please, spew your Pentagon-for-profit bullshit elsewhere.

[Alias Dictus Tyrant]

16. Eh?

I'm sorry, are you confused? You were apparently incapable of addressing any real points.

If we are going to cut military spending to supposedly save money, is it so wrong to expect that they will make cuts in areas that will actually save money? Call me crazy, but I want to actually cut military expenses, not engage in ideological masturbation that increases the cost of maintaining an effective military or engage in "military cut theater". Or are the Democrats the party of profligate waste now, as long as it is ideologically pleasing profligate waste? I'm still maintaining the position that Democrats are about efficient, cost-effective government, but feel free to dissuade me from that notion.

The argument about whether or not we should have a standing military is very different from the argument of whether or not we should have a cost effective military. Frank was talking about the latter, so my points were on topic.

[LeftinOH]

15. Abandon Guantanamo Bay altogether..how much $$ does it cost to keep it open per year?

[lib2DaBone]

19. $10 Billion a Month..... afforable?