I want folks to remember this, this is why President Obama kept Robert Gates. Only Robert Gates, a former republican, would have the ability to do what he's doing right now to the defense budget.
Pentagon looks for 100bn in cost savings over 5 years
Here's what Gates intends to do:
Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Monday he wants to trim some of the billions of dollars the Pentagon spends on weapons systems and contractor services, part of a Pentagon-wide effort to find $100 billion in savings in the next five years
Gates, who already plans to pare down the Pentagon's huge bureaucracy to save money, said that the Defense Department will focus on unnecessary spending by defense contractors that provide the military with everything from fighter jets to janitors.
Gates said it is "a matter of principle and political reality to make sure every taxpayer dollar counts." His goal is to shift money from overhead expenses to supporting U.S. troops spread around the globe.
Yes, I know, I know. It's over five years. It's not at one time instantly. Why doesn't he simply just cut, oh say 1/2 the defense budget, at whim? Because well, I'll give you the inimitable Spencer Ackerman who gets Ike Skelton, the SENIOR HEAD OF ARMED SERVICES in the HOUSE as being willing to kill DADT to continue pork barrelled spending that the military doesn't even WANT: Washington independent and Spencer Ackerman
He also linked the repeal of "Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell" to the administration’s fight to end development of a second engine model for the F-35 fighter plane. Obama and Gates have promised to veto Skelton’s defense policy bill if Congress insists on adding more than $400 million for the engine, which the military says it doesn’t need.
If Obama wants to repeal the law, he won’t want to follow through on his very clear threat to veto the bill over the fighter engine, Skelton suggested.
"It’s rather interesting, because there’s an item in the bill called ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ that the president thinks keenly strong about. Now will he veto a bill that has that in it?," Skelton wondered aloud. "I’m sure that goes through the creases of his mind."
This is why the military budget keeps getting bigger. It's the house of representatives and defense contractors. What defense contractors do (and it's actually pretty smart) is that they build part of a weapon in one district, then another in another district, and so on ad infinitum. Until EVERY. SINGLE. DISTRICT in the country has some vested interest in the vehicle. Of course they won't kill it then because it will kill jobs.
Which is why killing defense parts is so damn difficult given these realities. I know folks will bash Gates for not going far enough, but given these circumstances, Gates is a modern day hero.
UPDATE: While true, this conveys how troop withdrawals will effect the budget, we have Carl Levin acting skeptical that the bill should be vetoed over the JSF second engine. Again to illustrate the difficulty of this endeavor, here's Carl Levin, the head of the Senate Armed Services, TONIGHT, saying that he doesn't think Obama should veto the defense bill over the JSF second engine: Levin doesn't think the bill should be vetoed over the weapon
In his Kansas speech, Gates took aim at the secondary engine for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter — a project that has strong support from Levin. Gates has repeatedly threatened a veto recommendation of the defense bills to the president over the alternate engine, which he considers wasteful spending. Obama personally threatened a veto when the House gave the go-ahead to fund it in the 2011 defense authorization bill.
Levin on Monday was skeptical that Obama would follow through with a veto over the engine if it ends up in the final bill.
"I can’t imagine that, and we have heard very little about anything other than that," he said.