cuts in the budget

[RON DYCUS]

as planed as far back as 2010.03.31
Obama's efforts to keep the U.S. Military from reaching his goals: "We cannot continue to rely only on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives that we’ve set. We’ve got to have a civilian national security force that’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded..." ...must necessarily include reducing the amount of money spent on America's national security/national defense, or in other words, America's military forces.

The fact of the matter is that is exactly what's going on right now, and the November 23rd deadline is looming. I don't think any serious proposals to cut the deficit are forthcoming; I believe the deadline will come, triggering ridiculous, suicidal cuts to U.S. defense spending, while 'entitlement' spending, and other spending for massive, wasteful, corrupt government will continue unabated. I have zero faith in the 'super committee,' since the Marxists on it have no desire to see America remain strong and powerful.
It's too bad the left isn't as interested in keeping America safe as they are in slashing military spending! And for anybody who doesn't remember Obama declaring his intention to create his own private army, here's video evidence:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pla...

Gutting the Military
Owen Graham and Jackson Marsteller | October 27, 2011 at 3:45 pm
In his straightforward and scathing piece for today’s New York Post, Heritage senior fellow Peter Brookes discussed the devastating impact a sequestration of the defense budget would have on America’s military.

If the congressional “super committee” cannot find $1.5 trillion in budget savings over the next 10 years by November 23, the law would trigger automatic spending “sequestration” cuts of $1.2 trillion—of which roughly half a trillion or more would be from the defense budget. This spells major trouble for U.S. national security.

Since President Obama has been in office, Brookes points out, there have already been some $850 billion in Defense Department spending cuts (past, present, and future) over a 10-year period. These cuts eliminate 50 major weapons programs, and any more cuts would, in the words of Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, “be shooting ourselves in the head.”

These are scary words coming from (in Brookes’s words) “previously a green eye-shade ‘budgeteer’” like Panetta, but they are backed up by a recent House Armed Services Committee report that spells doom and gloom for our military and our economy if more cuts are made.

According to the report, the cuts would effectively “hollow out” America’s military. They would deeply undermine the Marine Corps and the expeditionary fighting force, leading to the smallest force in 50 years and compromising their ability to deploy to hot spots quickly in the event of a crisis—a hard-learned lesson from the Korean War. The cuts would take the Army below pre-9/11 troop levels and lead to an Air Force with two-thirds fewer fighters and strategic bombers than in 1990.

And last but not least, the Navy would have to mothball over 60 ships, including two carrier battle groups, shrinking it below pre–World War I levels.

America’s nuclear deterrent force—the foundation of U.S. national security—would be undermined as we would likely lose one of the legs of the U.S. nuclear triad. As the U.S. nuclear deterrent shrinks and loses credibility, some of the 31 countries that enjoy protection under the U.S. nuclear umbrella may consider going nuclear out of growing fears about their vulnerability. This would be extremely destabilizing and could lead to costly conflicts.

These cuts, Brookes warns, would “harm our ability to deter, dissuade or deal with adversarial activities and shape world events in our favor.” This is particularly the case with Iran and North Korea as well as with China, which has increased its yearly defense budget by double digits for the past two decades and has shown itself to be increasingly assertive in Asia Pacific. With rising threats to America’s interests at home and abroad, now is not the time to reduce America’s military deterrence.
Finally, America needs to reform the real drivers of the debt crisis—the big three entitlements—instead of trying to balance the budget on the backs of the U.S. military and compromising U.S. national security.

Service chiefs warn $1T cut would be ‘catastrophic’
Hill panel told of threat to readiness

By Rowan Scarborough | Wednesday, November 2, 2011

The Army’s top officer told Congress on Wednesday that he would have to cancel nearly every new weapons system now planned if automatic, across-the-board spending cuts of $1 trillion-plus hit the Pentagon.

“Cuts of this magnitude would be catastrophic to the military and, in the case of the Army, would significantly reduce our capability and capacity to assure our partners abroad, respond to crises, and deter our potential adversaries, while threatening the readiness of, potentially, the all-volunteer force,” Gen. Raymond Odierno said.

His dire warning came before the House Armed Services Committee, which is holding hearings to show how “sequestration,” as it is called, would devastate the all-volunteer force of 2.2 million active and reserve troops.

Committee Chairman Rep. Howard “Buck” McKeon, California Republican, and Rep. Adam Smith of Washington, the panel’s ranking Democrat, are both trying to hold Pentagon spending cuts to the already agreed-to $465 billion over the next 10 years.

But sequestration would drain an additional $585 billion from the Pentagon if Congress‘ ad hoc supercommittee fails to reach a deal on tax increases and spending cuts by Thanksgiving — or if Congress fails to act on the deal.

“The problem is that to date, defense has contributed more than half of the deficit-reduction measures we’ve taken, and there are some who want to use the military to pay for the rest, to protect the sacred cow that is entitlement spending,” Mr. McKeon said.

Mr. Smith said just meeting the agreed-to cuts “will be a great challenge, but it is wrong to think that the defense budget has somehow been held apart from our debt and deficit problems. Quite the opposite, it’s been in front and center.”

Gen. Odierno, the Army chief of staff who commanded all troops in Iraq, appeared before the committee with the three other service chiefs — the four-star generals whose main charge is to keep the force ready to deploy and fight.

They testified of the grim future that automatic budget cuts would bring: a drastically smaller force, few new weapons, irreversible damage to the arms industry and an inability to respond to world crises.

The Army chief of staff testified that sequestration would “almost eliminate our modernization programs” — a reference to plans to buy the $25 billion Ground Combat Vehicle to replace the Bradley Fighting Vehicle and the $54 billion Joint Light Tactical Vehicle to replace the Humvee, as well as other systems to better protect troops against enemy explosives.

Adm. Jonathan Greenert, chief of naval operations, said there are just two Navy shipbuilders in the U.S. today, down from six in 1998. Sequestration could make it difficult for them to survive, he said.

For nuclear-powered submarines and aircraft carriers, the admiral said, the private component producers have just one customer — the Navy.

“So if we interrupt that, I don’t know how many of these we lose or how we reconstitute it,” Adm. Greenert said. “Just don’t know … Giving them a holiday is probably not going to work.”

To keep sufficient funds to build nuclear-powered ships, the Navy would be forced to cut the size of the overall fleet and force sailors and ships to go to sea more often, he said.

The committee’s Republican staff has estimated that the Navy fleet would shrink from 300 to 238 ships.

On that theme, Gen. James Amos, the Marine Corps commandant, said the nation may lose forever the industrial ability to produce vertical take-off and landing aircraft, such as the Corps’ Harrier fighter, and the tilt-rotor aircraft Osprey.

“There’s not another nation in the world,” Gen. Amos said. “So if those lines were closed, that becomes terminal. That will become irreversible. You will not be able to gain that back.”

Gen. Norton Schwartz, Air Force chief of staff, said the new F-35 strike fighter and the KC-46, which refuels war planes in battle, also would be in jeopardy under sequestration.

The Air Force, he said, “as a matter of simple physical limitation, it will be able to accomplish fewer tasks in fewer places in any given period of time.”
Said Mr. Smith: “One thing’s absolutely clear. We’re not going to have more economic opportunity in this country if we have less influence in the world. It doesn’t work that way.”