re: Why the U.S. should cut the Pentagon budget in half

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soldier entitlements are the single biggest cost in the defense budget

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Well do we know which it is? Has to be a chart with acquisitions, O n M and personnel cost annually.

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40% of the 2013 budget went to operations and maintenance, 26% went to personnel, 19% went to procurement, 13% went to rdt&e, 2% went to military construction, less than 1% went to family housing, and management funds.

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Notice I specifically said "training and personnel". A very significant chunk of that training is tied up in the O&M budget. It costs $300,000+ just to put one kid through Army basic training.

Also, VA alone (separate from DoD budget but from a federal budget perspective, is still directly tied to the "personnel" side of the military) will be 136 billion next year.

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13SaintTiger

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Thanks for the numbers. The only shocker there to me is MilCon at 2%.

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I'm all for defense cuts, just not at the expense of lower enlisted soldiers.

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Well it will be the Joes that get it first. I keep getting surveys from a standing commission that is targeting "reform" in pay and benefits. There will be a start date and if you access after that date you are under the new system, basically a 401 type retirement "plan".

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I honestly don't even want to debate this with you. From the response you posted, I know you are set on your ill informed opinion. So if cutting a soldiers pay after 13 years of war eases your mind, even though it isn't the bulk of the budget, then so be it.

Also, cost is relative. Saying it costs 300,000$ to send a soldier through basic is like saying it cost a college with 40k+ students double the tuition for an out of state student.

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I was an active duty infantry officer with a fair amount of time in combat, and I did enough staff work on budgeting and resource allocation to make my eyes bleed. I actually do know what the frick I am talking about here.

Furthermore, answer me a few questions:

1. Where did I ever advocate for cutting soldier pay?

It should roughly be tied with inflation, no more or no less.

2. Do you think we need to reform the pension system?

Retiring at 38 (or 42 for officers) with 50% pension for the rest of your natural life is highway robbery. Can we cut the pensions for those currently in? Absolutely not. Should we set a minimum age of 60 or 65 for those who have not enlisted yet to start receiving pensions? Yes.

3. Referring back to point 1, why did you automatically assume that reducing personnel costs means cutting pay? Reducing the size of the active duty force is a much more effective method of doing this.

4. Do you support cuts to TriCare? It needs to be slashed and burned.

Your last sentence makes absolutely no sense, and you need to become better at expressing your point in the English language.

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Well do we know which it is? Has to be a chart with acquisitions, O n M and personnel cost annually.

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I do know that the vast majority of TriCare counts as O&M, despite the fact that TC cares for far more than just active duty folks

The problem isn't that we buy too much new shite. It's that we buy the wrong new shite. The F35 and Littoral Combat Ship are trillion dollar travesties. And it wasn't just the politicians that sold us on those. There are some flag level officers that I believe need to do jail time for shoving this shite down the taxpayer's throat.

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I'd agree to that right now if every other department had an equal cut:

HHS
EPA
DOEnergy
DOEducation

Etc.


So you want to basically "sequester" every Federal Agency?

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there something wrong with that? ...

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There are some flag level officers that I believe need to do jail time for shoving this shite down the taxpayer's throat.

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Maybe start with these.

Gen. Cartwright, shortly after his retirement, was elected to the Raytheon Co. board of directors. Raytheon, a public company that reports director compensation, disclosed paying each of its non-employee directors an $85,000 annual cash retainer in 2011, as well as a $1,500 meeting fee for each board or committee meeting attended in person or by teleconference. In addition, directors received $120,000 worth of restricted stock grants in 2011. Gen. Cartwright is also on the board of advisors of TASC, Inc., a former subsidiary of Northrop Grumman that advises military agencies, and a member of the U.S. federal advisory board of Accenture Federal Services.

Less than four months after his retirement, Adm. Roughead joined Northrop Grumman’s board, for which he is paid $115,000 per year. Northrop Grumman, a public company that reports director compensation, will also pay him an additional $10,000 per year for serving on the board’s audit committee, and he receives an annual grant of $130,000 in deferred stock.

Lt. Gen. Robert Dail retired from the Army on January 1, 2009, after serving as the director of the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA). In March 2009, Lt. Gen. Dail became president of Supreme Group USA, a then-new offshoot of the global logistics services company Supreme Group. Since 2005, Supreme Foodservice, another part of the Supreme Group, has been paid at least $6.8 billion under a contract with the DLA to supply food to U.S. and coalition troops in Afghanistan. The Pentagon says the company overcharged it by hundreds of millions of dollars, and began pressing it for a $756.9 million refund in December 2011.38 Despite the dispute, the company’s contract was renewed during Lt. Gen. Dail’s time at Supreme Group, and in June 2012, the company was awarded an additional $1.5 billion contract to ease the transition to a new vendor.

LINK

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Maybe start with these.

Gen. Cartwright, shortly after his retirement, was elected to the Raytheon Co. board of directors. Raytheon, a public company that reports director compensation, disclosed paying each of its non-employee directors an $85,000 annual cash retainer in 2011, as well as a $1,500 meeting fee for each board or committee meeting attended in person or by teleconference. In addition, directors received $120,000 worth of restricted stock grants in 2011. Gen. Cartwright is also on the board of advisors of TASC, Inc., a former subsidiary of Northrop Grumman that advises military agencies, and a member of the U.S. federal advisory board of Accenture Federal Services.

Less than four months after his retirement, Adm. Roughead joined Northrop Grumman’s board, for which he is paid $115,000 per year. Northrop Grumman, a public company that reports director compensation, will also pay him an additional $10,000 per year for serving on the board’s audit committee, and he receives an annual grant of $130,000 in deferred stock.

Lt. Gen. Robert Dail retired from the Army on January 1, 2009, after serving as the director of the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA). In March 2009, Lt. Gen. Dail became president of Supreme Group USA, a then-new offshoot of the global logistics services company Supreme Group. Since 2005, Supreme Foodservice, another part of the Supreme Group, has been paid at least $6.8 billion under a contract with the DLA to supply food to U.S. and coalition troops in Afghanistan. The Pentagon says the company overcharged it by hundreds of millions of dollars, and began pressing it for a $756.9 million refund in December 2011.38 Despite the dispute, the company’s contract was renewed during Lt. Gen. Dail’s time at Supreme Group, and in June 2012, the company was awarded an additional $1.5 billion contract to ease the transition to a new vendor.

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It's called the revolving door and it usually is an issue going the other way(private to government) but it also rears it's ugly head in this manner.

It's pretty sickening. They are already milking the government teet on one end, and then they make deals with private companies and select them for contract work to only get a niceh cushy job after they retire.

That's not illegal I don't believe.

Government is not run to turn a profit and can't fit into the free market and framework that the constitution intended the federal government to play. It needs to be reigned in but probably never will be.

Eisenhower tried to warn many of the complex, but Republicans and Democrats alike didn't heed his words.