Paring Back the Pentagon Budget
The Pentagon is trying to cut $450+ million in spending over the next decade, but may be forced to cut more than twice that amount. Can you do the same?
The NYT has an application that lets you decide where to cut - and the consequences of those cuts both in dollar value and potential problems with national security that could result (lower manpower or equipment may hamper ability to deal with emerging threats for instance).
For instance, I put together the following package resulting in $488 billion in cost savings over 10 years:
Cutting military retirement pay for new entrants - 86.5 billion
Freeze salaries of civilian workforce at the Pentagon for 3 years - $15.5 billion
Reduce ground forces to 657,400 (15%) reduction - $147 billion
Reduce Pentagon civilian workforce to 630,000 (20%) - $73 billion
Cancel Navy/Marine Corps version of the JSF - $6 billion
Cancel V-22 Osprey in FY 2016; total procurement 363 aircraft - $8 billion
Eliminate nuclear weapons from bomber aircraft, reducing nuclear triad to land and subs - $39 billion
Reduce military personnel in Europe and Asia to 100,000 from 150,000 (30%) - $69.5 billion
Consolidate DoD commissaries and retail stores - $9 billion
Reduce DoD travel costs - $14 billion
Standardize spending on base support - $20 billion
Scale back military bands $.2 billion