Military Cuts Don't Translate Into Less Spending
By Mattea Kramer,
After Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel gave a major speech at the Pentagon, The New York Times declared that the Pentagon would shrink the Army to pre-World War II levels. While he did announce an intention to reduce a number of military programs, the Pentagon isn’t planning major reductions in spending any time soon.
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Despite all of these changes, the new Pentagon budget doesn’t project a commensurate decline in spending. Back in December Rep. Paul Ryan and Sen. Patty Murray agreed on a budget blueprint that would allow military spending to grow slightly in fiscal 2015 relative to 2014 and 2013. On top of that, Secretary Hagel’s speech comes at a time when the president is proposing an additional $26 billion on top of that December agreement. That extra cash would support an “Opportunity, Growth and Security Initiative” that would fund “readiness and modernization” efforts. This extra funding is essentially a Pentagon wish list that would continue to protect the military from making any significant spending reductions in the near future.
Meanwhile, new five-year spending projections at the Pentagon show that it plans to exceed the spending caps of sequestration by $115 billion over the next five years. What’s more, the Pentagon receives many tens of billions in additional funding to operate wars overseas, and that money isn’t subject to caps. In fiscal 2014 that war budget, known officially as “Overseas Contingency Operations,” totaled $85 billion — and is being widely criticized for containing funding that wasn’t actually meant for war operations but instead would function as a slush fund for the Pentagon.
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http://truth-out.org/news/item/22187-military-cuts-dont-translate-into-less-spending
= new reply since forum marked as read
Wanted to kick it to the top. 
