Cut the Military Budget!

Barney Franks makes the case brilliantly: Cut the Military Budget!

The Pentagon is requesting a 12 percent INCREASE in the military budget ($584 billion). Reports indicate the Obama Administration is planning to give a 8 percent INCREASE ($527 billion). The military-industrial lobby is shifting to full speed in its PR campaign to argue that military spending is a necessary stimulant to the economy, and to drive home the attack that Obama's 8 percent increase is a CUT in military spending.

Everyone knows that the military inflates its budgets so that anything less than their increase request is portrayed as a cut. They still get $billions more every year. As Christopher Hayes points out in The Nation (Cut the Military Budget-I) even not counting the Iraq and Afghanistan military operations, the regular Pentagon budget has increased by 77 percent, while cost overruns in weapons systems have ballooned to $300 billion.

As Barney Franks points out, the math is compelling for cutting the military budget: "If we do not make the reductions approximating 25 percent of the military budget starting fairly soon, it will be impossible to continue to fund an adequate level of domestic activity even with a repeal of Bush's tax cuts."

"If we do not reduce the military budget, either we accustom ourselves to unending and increasing budget deficits, or we do severe harm to our ability to improve the quality of our lives through sensible public policy."

Even former Reagan Administration official Lawrence Korb (now Center for American Progress senior fellow) has been pushing cuts in military spending. He has presented an alternative Unified Security Budget which identifies $61 billion in cuts military programs that could be made "with no sacrifice to our security."

The United States is facing an economic crisis unlike any it has seen in 80 years. The Federal Reserve and FDIC have already spent trillions on the bailout. Now Congress has approved an economic stimulus that will cost near $800 billion. The national debt is over $10 trillion and the annual deficit is over $1 trillion. How is the United States going to pay for it? How is it going to fund the new energy economy, schools, education, health care and other urgent needs? One solution: cut the wasteful and bloated military budget.

Take Action! Tell the president, your senators, and your representative to cut the military budget and invest in rebuilding America

SEE ALSO:

Why Not Cut Military Spending?

The Risk of Military Keynesianism

Center for Defense Information