It's a Good Idea Even If It Came From Barney Frank

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Bonestorm

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But it'll never come close to happeneing:

A panel commissioned by Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) is recommending nearly $1 trillion in cuts to the Pentagon’s budget during the next 10 years.

The Sustainable Defense Task Force, a commission of scholars from a broad ideological spectrum appointed by Frank, the House Financial Services Committee chairman, laid out actions the government could take that could save as much as $960 billion between 2011 and 2020.

Measures presented by the task force include making significant reductions to the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program, which has strong support from Defense Secretary Robert Gates; delaying the procurement of a new midair refueling tanker the Air Force has identified as one of its top acquisition priorities; and reducing the Navy’s fleet to 230 ships instead of the 313 eyed by the service.
Shipbuilding has strong support in the congressional defense committees, which write the Pentagon bills. Efforts to reduce the number of ships would run into resistance from the Pentagon and the shipbuilding lobby.

Frank on Friday warned that if he can’t convince Congress to act in the “general direction” of the task force recommendation, “then every other issue will suffer.” Not cutting the Pentagon's budget could lead to higher taxes and spending cuts detrimental to the environment, housing and highway construction.
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http://thehill.com/homenews/house/1...ds-nearly-1t-in-defense-cuts-to-close-deficit
 
Yog-Sothoth said:
Nice idea, but I disagree on some of the particulars, especially with regards to the navy.
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That's kind of the rub of it though, innit? I mean, you get enough people to disagree about the particulars and suddenly the revamping of the military and cutting of the Pentagon budget becomes maintaining the status quo and simply not increasing the budget as much as everyone would like.
 
It is a great idea. The line about the "shipbuidling lobby" is pretty indicative of the chances though.

Powerful lobbies > considerations of actual need.
 
NigelTufnel said:
That's kind of the rub of it though, innit? I mean, you get enough people to disagree about the particulars and suddenly the revamping of the military and cutting of the Pentagon budget becomes maintaining the status quo and simply not increasing the budget as much as everyone would like.
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Yeah but if we're talking overall long term value, naval ships beat everything out. They have a typical service life of 35 years (and going beyond that isn't rare). Cutting the F-35 I'm all for, as well as the army's new "Land Warrior" bullshit.
 
NigelTufnel said:
But it'll never come close to happeneing:



http://thehill.com/homenews/house/1...ds-nearly-1t-in-defense-cuts-to-close-deficit
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some good ideas in there, though I would like to see a mention to the administrative waste as well. I would also agree with Billy... the naval capacity is not an area I would think best to cut from. I do like the fact they mentioned pulling back resources/manpower from bases in Europe.

There will never be a perfect plan, but this is certainly a good start.

The one caveat... I don't like the ultimatum portion... where Frank wants members to tell the committee that none of their recommendations will be considered WITHOUT defense cuts. That type of behavior is what leads to the next group in Congress stating, THEY won't support ANY recommendations if 'X' doesn't have any cuts.
 
Personally I'm an advocate of closing all foreign bases. As for administrative waste, I cannot agree more. The army has wasted over 4 billions dollars in the past 10 years, doing various rifle trials to see if they will replace the M16. The result, of course, is we still have the M16.
 
Yog-Sothoth said:
Personally I'm an advocate of closing all foreign bases. As for administrative waste, I cannot agree more. The army has wasted over 4 billions dollars in the past 10 years, doing various rifle trials to see if they will replace the M16. The result, of course, is we still have the M16.
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I agree. I've been advocating this, with exceptions, for years now. Particularly our European bases.
 
Yog-Sothoth said:
Yeah but if we're talking overall long term value, naval ships beat everything out. They have a typical service life of 35 years (and going beyond that isn't rare). Cutting the F-35 I'm all for, as well as the army's new "Land Warrior" bullshit.
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That is if we need them and can afford them. Maybe we have more important priorities then having 313 warships? National Defense is not supposed to be a "free market enterprise" and there's only so many tax dollars to go around. What are you willing to give up in order to pay off our debt? Reducing the size and wastefull expenditures does of a bloated military does not seem inappropriate. It's not like their suggesting that they get rid of the Navy all together.
 
I find it funny that Billy, ex-Dept. of Navy servicemember sees specific need of his field's resources. As a Dept. of AF guy, I'd rather not see our resources cut. I can see not wanting to spend money on new fighters and tankers, but anything that can be used in Air Defense (what I consider the most important function of the military, which is oddly enough the field I am employed under) I see as important...
 
Mott, I've been pretty open about massive defense spending cuts. But in terms of costs vs benefits, the naval warships beat everything out.

And 3D, while the Marines may fall under the navy, my advocating on their behalf isn't based on that. It's simply cost effective.
 
Actually, I could use a little hedducation, Billy. I'm rather ignorant of naval matters, and I'd be interested in hearing your perspective about the need for the level of naval defense that would be served by having the larger fleet advocated by the Navy (313 versus 250).
 
I know you mentioned ship longevity in an earlier thread/post, which is certainly a good consideration on the matter of cost effectiveness.
 
SSgt said:
Actually, I could use a little hedducation, Billy. I'm rather ignorant of naval matters, and I'd be interested in hearing your perspective about the need for the level of naval defense that would be served by having the larger fleet advocated by the Navy (313 versus 250).
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313 is a bit much. I'd settle for 280. But basically the navy is what we use to project power. It's what allows us to be at any particular point in the world, at whatever time we please. Not to mention a single aircraft carrier houses more planes than most national air forces. While 313 seems like a huge number of warships, it's misleading. Just like for a plane, for every pilot you need about 20 engineers to maintain the damned plane. The same goes with ships. Large refueling rigs, floating drydocks, transports, etc. It's more than destroyers and aircraft carriers. Thus taking a single ship out, affects your ability to project power and protect international trade routes, at a scale that is larger than the ship itself.
 
I think cutting 1 trillion dollars is a great idea...start with the salaries, pensions, and benefits of government workers...then a reduction of oh...say 15 % in ALL welfare programs with complete elimination of programs like free cellphones and minutes for anyone receiving them and other similar programs ....
After that goal is met, we can talk about some more serious cuts....

And as the protection of the entire country from enemies, foreign and domestic, is the one most important duty of the government, the military should be funded for any and all it needs to fulfill that duty...
 
Yog-Sothoth said:
313 is a bit much. I'd settle for 280. But basically the navy is what we use to project power. It's what allows us to be at any particular point in the world, at whatever time we please. Not to mention a single aircraft carrier houses more planes than most national air forces. While 313 seems like a huge number of warships, it's misleading. Just like for a plane, for every pilot you need about 20 engineers to maintain the damned plane. The same goes with ships. Large refueling rigs, floating drydocks, transports, etc. It's more than destroyers and aircraft carriers. Thus taking a single ship out, affects your ability to project power and protect international trade routes, at a scale that is larger than the ship itself.
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how much power do we weed to project and at what cost
 
Yog-Sothoth said:
313 is a bit much. I'd settle for 280. But basically the navy is what we use to project power. It's what allows us to be at any particular point in the world, at whatever time we please. Not to mention a single aircraft carrier houses more planes than most national air forces. While 313 seems like a huge number of warships, it's misleading. Just like for a plane, for every pilot you need about 20 engineers to maintain the damned plane. The same goes with ships. Large refueling rigs, floating drydocks, transports, etc. It's more than destroyers and aircraft carriers. Thus taking a single ship out, affects your ability to project power and protect international trade routes, at a scale that is larger than the ship itself.
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Cool, thanks. I tend to think of projecting power, from the Navy's field, only in terms of its nuclear subs, and less in conventional terms such as battleships. But it is important to protect trade the world over, and not just in the vicinity of Eastern Africa.
 
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