Though Congressional hawks have united squarely against the notion of even broaching the subject of cutting military spending, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta today continued months of loudly condemning the notion, insisting it would “devastate” the military to have to live with less money.
In his latest round of comments to the House Armed Services Committee, Panetta declined to offer specifics about what cuts would means in actual terms, but claimed it would make it “difficult” to keep troops occupying nations across the planet.
Beyond that, Panetta urged Congress to consider tax increases as an alternative, saying that they should work with the Pentagon on the budget and focus on “increases in revenue” and cuts to other programs before touching the massive military budget.
The latest round of comments, though largely not different from his near weekly diatribes about military spending, come as the committee is poised to deliver its recommendation to the “supercommittee” in the next few days, though neither Armed Services Committee nor supercommittee appears to have much political interest in cutting defense spending.
This Pinata of lies needs a thorough ass kicking. Sweet mercy! We and our children are being financially raped by the likes of this self serving SOB and he has the cajones to say that taxes need to be raised in order to send us further into the poor house…. But, of course, not el presidente and swine like this.
There will be no defence cut as once army has got money they enjoy and use this money especially in wars-
. There is no audit and control.
The voting majority being the 51% most aggressive and wealthy, just what do they gain by a larger military engaging in more brutal imperialism and plunder?
It’s the plunder stupid.
A sane person would look at the financial situation of the country and understand that continuing to live beyond our means will lead ONLY to total collapse. Having been involved in military budgeting in a couple of different theaters I can assure you that there are plenty of pieces of the budget that are superfluous and just plain waste. A sane person would look at the strategic value of having a presence nearly everywhere on the globe and decide that it really isn't necessary. A sane person would use some introspective and admit that our presence nearly everywhere on the globe might just be the reason the Pentagon feels they need to be there – a self-fulfilling prophesy.
A sane person could close those extraneous bases and bring those troops home and save billions in maintenance and base leasing – just closing the bases in Europe could save billions per year.
A sane person would decide what it is they HAVE to do and cut that which no longer is critical.
A sane person…but it doesn't look like there's one of them in charge (nor wanting to be in charge.)
Whatever Leon's been drinking needs to be taken off the shelves.
Wake up Panetta your boss has committed ANOTHER $100 MILION a day in UGANDA so you don't have to worry about CUTS. JUST WORRY ABOUT HOW TO PAY FOR IT ALL, OH SORRY YOU GUYS NEVER WORRY ABOUT THAT.
After all the good American lemmings will pay for it with less jobs and less money whilst the "so called Terrorists"" will grow stronger and get more recruits due to your stupidity.
Worse than Rumsfeld — this guy has descended into madness.