(Sustainable Defense) Task force: Budget fix requires extreme cuts

[unhappycamper]

$1 trillion in savings
Plan would drop 2 carriers, F-35, Osprey


Task force: Budget fix requires extreme cuts
By Lance M. Bacon - Staff writer
Posted : Monday Jun 28, 2010 5:52:59 EDT

Cut two carriers and 40 percent of new ballistic-missile subs, then slash the fleet to 230 ships and eight air wings. Terminate the F-35, Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle and V-22 Osprey. Drop down to six expeditionary strike groups, eliminate the maritime prepositioning force and place greater emphasis on surging smaller naval groups as needed.

These are but some of the eyebrow-raising recommendations provided to Congress on June 10 by the Sustainable Defense Task Force. The group was formed at the request of Reps. Barney Frank, D-Mass.; Walter B. Jones, R-N.C.; and Ron Paul, R-Texas; and Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore. The task force proposal amounts to $1.1 trillion in defense cuts over 10 years. Slightly more than half of that amount comes from personnel budgets; the rest comes by cutting research, development and procurement of weapons systems.

While acknowledging that its recommendations will be hard for some to accept, the task force defended its report, saying a “significant number of the cuts that we propose and review represent outdated, wasteful and ineffective systems that could be foregone without any arguable impact on our national security.”

But not everyone is in full agreement — and that begins with one of the lawmakers who helped form the task force.



unhappycamper comment: Finally someone in Washington is paying attention to reality.

MV-22 Ospreys cost $100 million a pop.

F-35s cost $243 million a pop.

New carriers are going to cost somewhere between $16.5 to $40 billion a pop.

The two new submarines we get each and every year cost a minimum of $5.6 billion.

[Overseas]

1. K&R. We need a sustainable military budget. Not extreme at all.

Far more extreme to let unemployment insurance expire for millions of people during the continuing Republican Great Recession.

[Scuba]

2. But then how will we defend against....

...the Taliban Air Force and Navy? Oh yeah, they don't have any.

[unhappycamper]

3. Kicking for the evening crowd.

Currently at 8 recs.

:kick: