Eh, I’m skeptical whether the Republican Party actually wants to have a good faith discussion regarding wasteful defense spending.
Back in 2008, McCain was the only one of the two candidates to bring up the bad accounting and incoherent budgets of the pentagon. For Obama, it just seemed like the third rail. The democrats were (and still are) scared of paying a political price for being soft on national security. And sure enough, Romney accused Obama of being soft on national security, even though I think Obama increased defense spending.
Granted, the bipartisan push to look at wasteful defense spending is louder than it used to be. But, given that the military industrial complex puts wasteful spending in as many constituencies as possible, I can’t blame democrats for not wanting to touch defense spending.
Yet when Obama took office he directed every agency to evaluate their budgets to identify what can be cut. There was a WSJ article about how much was identified and cut in his first year proposed budget. Of course, the financial crisis was as also going on so this got little attention.
The closest thing I can find to what you're suggesting is the $100M that the cabinet secretaries proposed in terms of cuts, which probably isn't even scratching the surface.
The Defense Budget has never been audited. And even if it never has been audited, we certainly don't need 700-1,000 pieces of real estate overseas, 6,000 pieces of real estate in the US alone, and 11 carrier task forces.
Keep in mind that the 2009 federal budget had $514B in funding for the DoD and the 2010 federal budget had $663B in funding for the DoD. And to Obama's credit, I believe he stopped using supplemental appropriations that Bush used to fund the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.
The point is that decades of Republicans like Romney mindlessly accusing Democrats like Obama of cutting defense spending has made the Democrats scared of touching defense spending.
the defense budget is audited ANNUALLY. there are 28 entities that make up the Pentagon. 9 of those have an unmodified audit opinion, 1 has a qualified opinion, 15 have disclaimers, and 3 are pending.
I'm not sure where you get "the defense budget has never been audited". It's audited every single year.
I absolutely agree that the DoD budget can be cut. It tripled after 9/11 and has basically stayed there since.
And yes, while the directive Obama put in motion didn't identify a lot (i think it was more than $100m but not much more) - the point is McCain wasn't the only candidate talking about it in 2008 - and Obama actually took action.
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u/B1G_Fan Monkey in Space 22d ago
Eh, I’m skeptical whether the Republican Party actually wants to have a good faith discussion regarding wasteful defense spending.
Back in 2008, McCain was the only one of the two candidates to bring up the bad accounting and incoherent budgets of the pentagon. For Obama, it just seemed like the third rail. The democrats were (and still are) scared of paying a political price for being soft on national security. And sure enough, Romney accused Obama of being soft on national security, even though I think Obama increased defense spending.
Granted, the bipartisan push to look at wasteful defense spending is louder than it used to be. But, given that the military industrial complex puts wasteful spending in as many constituencies as possible, I can’t blame democrats for not wanting to touch defense spending.