This McClatchy
story got me to thinking on what we can do to help reduce the budget. After all the 2010 budget deficit is somewhere between $1.1 to $1.5 trillion dollars in the read. You read that correctly: 1,100 to 1,500 billions of dollars in the red.
My first suggestion is to end the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. The 98,000 boots on the ground in Afghanistan cost us around $100 billion dollars a year. Closing out Iraq would (probably) save another $60~$70 billion dollars.
Next up: The new Ford-class aircraft carrier (the keel was laid down last month) will cost us $11.5 billion dollars sans people and aircraft. We have enough aircraft and bombs to do the world in a few times over.
Do we really need to buy two $2.8 billion dollar submarines each and every year?
Don't forget the $548 milllion dollar National Security Cutters, nor the $1.4 billion dollar LAPDs.
Cancel the $239 million dollar F-35. It's an underpowered piece of shit that no one in their right minds would buy. The vision was to have thousands of them to replace retiring aircraft. JSF my ass.
Cancel the expensive Littoral Combat Ships; the first two were almost 200% over budget. The militay's solution? Instead of costing $220 million as originally specified the 'new' specs say they will cost somewhere around $550 million or so.
The MV-22 Osprey is a $70 million dollar boondoggle. And yet we continue to buy squadrons of them. The F/A-18 only costs $68 million or so in the basic configuration.
Remember those MRAPs we rushed to Iraq a few years ago? Guess how we rushed them. Yup, you guessed it.... By air. We had to rent Russian aircraft to fly these puppies to Iraq.
The military budget was $302 billion in 2000. It is now a trillion dollars a year. One fucking trillion dollars. Each. And. Every. Year.
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