Here are a couple ways to cut the budget

[rurallib]

from a friend's email earlier today:

First, the funding for OCO (Overseas Contingency Operations) should be stripped from the Pentagon budget beginning in 2013. OCO is, simply put, the budgeting for overseas wars. Seventy members of Congress, including Iowa's Bruce Braley, suggested this to the supercommittee in September, and indicated that it would save $1.8 Trillion. This would not leave the Pentagon's pockets empty nor leave the country defenseless. The Pentagon budget of over $500 billion per year is bloated, and who wants more overseas wars anyhow? The second initiative is the Financial Transaction Tax, proposed by Senator Harkin and Congressman DeFazio, which would assess a tax of $3 for each $10,000 in stock & derivative trades, with exemptions for small investors. This would be projected to raise $350 billion over ten years, and would have the added benefit of putting a small brake on unproductive financial speculation.