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5 Items to Cut from the Defense Budget That You Might Be Surprised Were Even in There

Mar. 5, 2013 2:01pm Chris Field

Editor’s note: Every issue of TheBlaze Magazine includes a “list” department that covers just about any issue, ranging from our lists of the “Top 15 Absurd Government Spending Items” and “Top 5 Bizarre Taxes” to the “Top 10 Most Charitable States” and “Top 5 War on Christmas Battles” to the “Top 15 Panicked Left-wing Reactions to the Paul Ryan Pick” and “Top 10 Recent Leftist Calls To Curb Free Speech.” And our new issue that’s out now ranks the “5 Lamest ‘Core’ Classes at Top American Colleges.”

Normally, we keep material in the magazine exclusive to the magazine, which helps us retain the value of a subscription for our paid subscribers. But with the fight over sequestration still raging, we thought we’d share a list of cuts totaling $68 billion that could be done today — and the cuts are in the Pentagon budget. Below is the list, as printed in the January 2013 issue of TheBlaze Magazine.

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The primary responsibilities of our Defense Department are to defend our nation and protect the inalienable constitutional rights of every U.S. citizen. With an annual budget of more than $600 billion, most Americans likely believe that should more than cover our military needs; however, billions of dollars are being spent every year on programs and/or missions that have very little—or even nothing—to do with national security. Many of those functions are either unnecessary or are already being served by other government agencies.

In a report titled “Department of Everything,” Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., identifies several areas and programs that have no business sucking nearly $70 billion in funding from areas the DOD actually needs in order to do its job. As Coburn’s report notes, “These areas are merely a starting point for reviewing Pentagon spending that is unnecessary, duplicative, wasteful or simply not related to defense.” Here are five areas that could be cut immediately. (The full Senate report is available here.)

#5: Alternative Energy — $700 Million

Though the Pentagon is smart to look for ways to reduce energy costs, it can start really saving money by eliminating “green energy” efforts that are ineffective and inefficient. Also, the DOD should not duplicate the work of the Department of Energy and the private sector where the development of these more-efficient energy technologies is being done more effectively.

#4: Non-Military Research and Development — $6 Billion

The DOD currently supports research that is already being conducted by other federal agencies. Also, because of a lack of oversight given to how decisions on research funding are made, the opportunity for fraud and abuse is enormous. For example, as Coburn notes, “DARPA [the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency] has abused [its] latitude and flexibility and used its resources to pursue research that has little to no connection to defending the country or increasing military capability. Questions surrounding the adequacy of the selection of R&D projects arose when the family business of the DARPA director was receiving millions of dollars for a dubious project.”

Another DARPA incident included a researcher who plagiarized a grant proposal and reports to get funding from DARPA, the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, and the National Science Foundation for the exact same project.

The report also points out that the DOD’s problems are more than just duplication and poor fund management—the Pentagon is also funding projects that have nearly nothing (or nothing at all) to do with defense, including studies on slang used on Twitter and an iPhone app to “help people manage their caffeine consumption to suit their lifestyles.”

#3: Grocery Stores — $9 Billion

The military has had on-post grocery stores for the military since 1825, well before the proliferation of large grocery outlets such as Safeway, Costco, Giant, etc. One option, of course, would be to eliminate the on-base stores altogether, which could save the government serious money. Another option, which the CBO has put together, would be to eliminate the taxpayer subsidy for the commissaries, which would increase prices by about 7 percent. According to the report, “DOD could supplement the existing military pay benefit of Basic Allowance for Subsistence by this amount and still save $9.1 billion over 10 years for deficit reduction or other defense priorities”—which could include more money for military members with families.

#2: Education — $15.2 Billion

There are two main places to find savings in this area. First, end the Domestic Dependent Elementary and Secondary Schools (DDESS), an idea also recommended by President Obama’s Fiscal Commission. DDESS operates 64 schools on 16 military installations in the United States, and “over 19,000 students are taught by over 2,000 teachers and staff in DDESS at a cost of over $50,000 per student,” says Coburn’s report. (The Education Department says that the average annual cost per non-DDESS student in America is about $11,000.)

Second, reform the Department of Defense Tuition Assistance Program so that it is not duplicating what’s already being offered by the Department of Veterans Affairs GI Bill and the Department of Education.

There’s also an accountability problem—the GAO has criticized the tuition program because the DOD has no centralized system to track fraud and abuse and “the Pentagon does not does not have an inventory of [its professional education] programs, does not evaluate them, and does not know the benefits of these programs nor their cost.”

#1: Support and Supply Services — $37 Billion

A massive savings could be realized by reclassifying a quarter of military members currently performing civilian-type jobs. From Coburn’s report: “The Department of Defense spends billions of dollars every year on non-defense related activities. This includes overhead and administration as well as activities that could be performed by civilians or are not even ‘inherently governmental’ in nature. … Many of those performing support and supply services are active duty members of the military. More than 340,000 active duty military personnel serve in commercial-type jobs such as supply, transportation and communications services. Some of these troops are deployed to perform these functions in war zones. However, for those military service members that do not deploy, the Department of Defense is using many of its most valuable and costly employees to perform civilian-type support functions here in the United States or in allied countries such as Germany and England. A Pentagon advisory board described this practice as a ‘poor use of our most expensive personnel—active duty military.’”

Additional savings could be found by reducing the number of general and flag officers to Cold War ratios and by addressing the poor track record of overhead expenses.

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Comments (91)

frogg
Posted on March 5, 2013 at 5:11pm
Every one of these ideas are stupid! Commissaries are a part of the contract to the GI. Schools for our children are another part of the contract. Want to save a lot of money? Why not make our GI’s but their own weapons and ammo to fight our wars??? Talk about stupid people!!!! I’m talking about our Generals that care more about their Stars than they do about our GI’s!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This makes me sick to my stomach!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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- dd41
  Posted on March 5, 2013 at 6:22pm
  Sounds like you profit from this and if you don’t, why are you so opposed and angered?
  
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- Homeschoolmama
  Posted on March 5, 2013 at 9:33pm
  I’ve shopped at the commissary, Walmart is better!
  
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- leh
  Posted on March 5, 2013 at 9:43pm
  Sorry frogg but dependent education and the commissary are not part of any contract. They are add-ons for the bennie of the troops.
  
  Report this comment
- Belchfire V-8
  Posted on March 6, 2013 at 12:29am
  Numbers 5 and 4 are no brainers, To replace military personnel with civilians in those jobs that were mentioned would invite bloated civilian GS type pay, and those stinking unions. Comisaries and military schools should stay. For one thing, union teachers are not that fond of the military and dependents. I ran into this with my children. I loved showing up at that school in uniform, just to irritate them.
  
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- Flyingfish
  Posted on March 6, 2013 at 6:55am
  I could buy my own weapons and gear? That would be AWESOME! Instead now we have whole Commands of people devoted to keeping track of what we spend our money on. The end result is half our gear is crap, not to mention 10-50 years old, and the other half doesn’t exist because no one bought it because all the money went to paying the very people who are supposed to be buying it for us.
  
  It’s amazing how much extra a month you could pay our soldiers to buy their own gear if we just got rid of the 30,000-40,000 people whose job is just to make sure we have gear.
  
  Report this comment
- AJBrad
  Posted on March 6, 2013 at 10:24am
  The commissaries are an important benefit to military families. There is another outfit on bases which used to be a benefit, the PX. The PX/BX used to sell general merchandise at lower prices than could be found anywhere else in the world, and saved military families thousands a year. Think JC Penney at factory direct prices minus shipping and any tax. Now the PX/BX charges the same price as JC Penney, and pockets the profit, which makes them (AAFES/NEXCOM) a FORTUNE 100 company.
  
  I see no reason at all the commissaries should not be subsidized wholly by AAFES. Prices kept the same, and nothing else changes either. There is no reason for a Fortune 100 company selling golf clubs and toasters to soldiers, this is one time I will agree with the libs about obscene profit. PX’s were intended in the beginning as a benefit, and they should be still, not a military Wal-Mart with high prices.
  
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Warthog Fixer
Posted on March 5, 2013 at 5:02pm
#1: Support and Supply services, yes there are MANY positions that civilians can and do fill. Some positions are given members of the Guard and Reserves who do the same job during the week in civilian attire vs. being in uniform and then they pull their 1 weekend a month and 2 weeks a year commitment if they don’t deploy.
The problem associated with this is now the military member will live overseas for the duration of his commitment (potentially up to and over 20 years) while the civilian stays in the rear with the gear, with even lower probabilities of deployment. Yes, “civilians” do deploy to war zones, generally staying in higher security areas. This raises the question of why would anyone want to enlist to live in whatever pristine destination we’re currently at war with, remember we’ve been actively fighting a war with Afghanistan since 2002. While yes I volunteered, I wouldn’t want to have lived there for the past 10 years!!!

At the end of the day yes, things are going to slow down for the DoD. We’ll handle our load! But what about the other 80% of the Federal Budget?
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- Warthog Fixer
  Posted on March 5, 2013 at 5:07pm
  Wow, these came up all kinds of backwards… my apologies!
  
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Warthog Fixer
Posted on March 5, 2013 at 5:02pm
Point’s #4 & #5 are hard to argue against.
#3: Commissaries provide an excellent value to service members with generally higher quality food per price that you can find at comparable “Super Wal-Mart’s” for example. Could we live around it in the United States? Probably, overseas locations would be MUCH more difficult to live without a Commisary.
#2: I know the study states that the schools in question are within the CONUS (Continental United States), however I would really like to see that breakout. If they’ve mistakenly included OCONUS schools that number is horribly skewed!
T/A, I am taking part of this program. I’ve completed 27 semester credits in the last year alone while maintaining a 3.8 GPA at the same time as serving full time. If/when this T/A is taken from me I will not be able to reasonably continue my education until I separate from service without taking on student loans/grants/etc. Granted yes, I will have my G.I. Bill to fall back on, but why should I have to serve 20+ years and only THEN get to attend higher education after I’ve honorably served this country for my entire adult life?

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Nepenthe
Posted on March 5, 2013 at 4:32pm
Yes, cut grocery and education, screwing over Soldiers, and continue making billion dollar planes that don”t work.

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- kaydeebeau
  Posted on March 5, 2013 at 4:39pm
  Really – did you even read then think about what you read before you commented? Apparently not -
  
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- becky62lpn
  Posted on March 5, 2013 at 4:49pm
  Where we are in Camp Lejeune, there is a Commissary and another on MCAS New River, not 10 miles apart. I think that in its self is a waste of money. NEX on Both bases, and i know i can drive to one if i want to shop but most the time i shop off base. Now they are putting solar panels up like an acres worth, who’s taking care of those civilians. Supply well come on you could have more military who are on light duty etc….run that. When we went there to turn in gear and or supplies there were lazy people over there sitting around doing nothing….so i see cuts there. The only way we used the education services was when deployed via pc other than that, never did. Some of the cuts i can see some well time will tell.
  
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- desertspeaks
  Posted on March 5, 2013 at 5:34pm
  having been a military brat I went to school on a few military bases and few public schools, there was zero difference between the two, other than on base schools you only associated with other military brats!
  I currently assist my elderly parents with their shopping and I shop for them at the commissary on base as is their wish, there is no difference in the prices, EXCEPT a lot of times I can get different items off base cheaper than at the commissary. As for those pointing out taxes for items at the commissary. In Arizona there is no tax on food items so that is a moot point for us.
  So the CBO is either lying or misinformed as to their statement that there is a 7 percent subsidy for the commissaries and their patrons!
  
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perry1980
Posted on March 5, 2013 at 4:07pm
It is absolutely Shamefull what this country has become.
We waste Billions of dollars every year.
If the General public read where every dollar went we would all be Disgusted with our politicians.
Shamefull

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- Wolf
  Posted on March 6, 2013 at 7:07am
  And we’re not disgusted with politicians now? (But I do get the humor of your statement.)
  
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huey6367
Posted on March 5, 2013 at 3:11pm
How about also cutting:

The Department of Education – Education has only become progressively worse since tis inception. Every year they come up with some new way of educating our kids and every year it doesn’t work. Useless.

The Department of Energy – originally established to lessen our dependency on foreign oil. Completely fails in that respect. Either eliminate this monstrosity or greatly reduce it.

EEOC and affirmative action – Affirmative action is what Obama elected. Obviously a failure. To guarantee a person a job based on race and not on qualifications obviously doesn’t work. Get rid of it.

Presidential vacations – like everyone else, he gets two weeks a year. No more. No less.

Those few things alone would save BILLIONS a year. Money we cannot afford to lose.

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- huey6367
  Posted on March 5, 2013 at 3:17pm
  with spelling and typo errors – thank you. I will be here all week.
  
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- CreamOfWheat616
  Posted on March 5, 2013 at 4:25pm
  Could you elaborate on how everyone gets 2 weeks of vacation per year? I’m 26 years old, work in the private sector, and get significantly more than that. Furthermore, most federal government employees get at the very least a little more than that. I’m no fan of Obama, but you do need to realize that just because a president takes a change in scenery that he doesn’t really stop working. In fact, Obama NOT working is about the best thing that could happen to this country!
  
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dosdelgados
Posted on March 5, 2013 at 3:07pm
The grocery stores exist for the installation to be self sustaining. If the gates are closed, the base should still be able to function.

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- Tx Spud Bar
  Posted on March 5, 2013 at 3:47pm
  Any grocery store has only 3 days of food if the trucks stop running.The comosery is for the military as there are no taxes, or no big mark-up on wholesale ptrices as the stores are supsidezed with tax payer money.
  
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- tmbell87
  Posted on March 5, 2013 at 3:57pm
  Also, the subsistence allowance for servicemembers is a joke. It doesn’t come close to the grocery needs for most families so simply stating that giving a 7% bump in the allowance will cover the 7% overall rise in prices is ludicrous. Furthermore, if the servicemember is deployed (Like me on a submarine), that allowance goes with you and your family gets nothing.
  
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- OldVet
  Posted on March 5, 2013 at 4:01pm
  Military commissaries are not allowed to undercut the local grocery stores. Many times the sales taxes are the only savings. In Texas there is no tax on food. We used to get better deals of base. Cutting out the commissaries is not going to be a money saver for the DOD because volume helps the whole system and many commissaries are in remote locals.
  
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- dosdelgados
  Posted on March 5, 2013 at 4:02pm
  I live on a military installation. We may not pay tax on our purchases, but we pay a 5% surcharge on everything we buy. The surcharge is used to build new and maintain the existing commissaries. The notion that the commissaries are strictly funded by taxpayer money is false.
  
  And the variety of available brands has decreased over the years. Diapers are waaaaaay cheaper at Target than at our commissary. And they do not double coupons.
  
  Report this comment
- frgough
  Posted on March 6, 2013 at 1:00pm
  @DOSDELGADOS
  
  You do realize that your military salary is 100% taxpayer supported, right? So any money you might pay extra to support building a commisary is, by definition, 100% taxpayer money.
  
  Report this comment
- AirForceVet-ProudGunOwner-American
  Posted on March 13, 2013 at 4:44pm
  @frgough – Bad logic. Sure, the surcharge goes back into funding DECA, but that same military member could spend our tax dollars at Wall Mart too. I don’t think it matters where the money that the customer is spending comes from, that’s not the point. The point dosdelgados is making is that they still make money to sustain themselves. DECA is not the burdon on the military budget. More money is wasted on the Thunderbirds, advertising, AFN…I could go on and on, but it wouldn’t get anything fixed.
  
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Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra
Posted on March 5, 2013 at 2:56pm
Ah, get rid of commissaries, but the commissaries do charge a 5% surcharge to offset the cost of maintenance and cost of overhead for the commissary system, plus the mark-up cost of the items itself. The commissary system is self-sufficient, and is actually still needed overseas. But I agree, if it saves money, we could cut another benefit from our military, especially the young E-2, or E-3 that has a wife and kids, they don’t need that benefit that saves them 10-20% off their food costs. So cutting that from them, can they then get food stamps, because their pay is below the poverty line?
For civilians to look at some of these things in the military and say, why do you need that, cut it, they really don’t understand the military. Part of the fact that someone in the lower ranks get some of these benefits, it is considered part of your pay, so every time these are cut, you lose more of the good people because, they simply can get out and make a better living. That hurts the military over a long period of time; retention of the capable people is what keeps our military the best in the world. If you want a bunch of dumb lackeys, keep cutting any incentive for them to stay. Remember, this is a profession, just like any other job. We have very specialized systems and we need people that have the skills to operate them. As for DARPA, they developed that space plane everyone is talking about, the X-33, so yes, cut DARPA.

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- VRW Conspirator
  Posted on March 5, 2013 at 3:11pm
  Darmok
  the article did say to increase their pay by the 7% they save at the PX..
  the commissaries are like the cafeteria…and they automatically charge anyone living in non-family on base housing..right out of the paycheck…and most guys don’t eat there…they go back to their on base apartment and cook or go out…
  I have two sons that have done this…they get charged about $300 a month automatically then they go out and spend another $100-200 on food each month mainly because they want snacks and drinks at home but also because sometimes their duty hours do not allow them time to hit the mess hall and eat…
  
  now on/off base family housing is different…those people already get rental assistance up to a level based on their pay grade, clothing allowance, food allowance, and the like…
  most off base apartments that service the military personnel include as many utilities as they can into the rent and they bill the base directly, the enlisted personnel never sees the check…the soldier only needs to cover internet, TV, and phone usually….
  
  you can go right to GoArmy.com and look things up for yourself…or do a search on any engine…
  
  a Sargent with 10 years with a family of four, living off base has an equivalent income to a college grad family of four working privately when you take in taxes, benefits, and extra compensations… about $55-70K/year depending on region of residence…
  some officers are double that….
  
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- Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra
  Posted on March 5, 2013 at 3:33pm
  Yes, increase their pay 7%, but with the Dems in office, as such with Clinton in the 90′s, they will take the benefit away, and then not cover the increase in pay, or as they are doing right now, freeze the pay, and cut promotions. Now when you want to start comparing a Sgt. that has 10 or more years in the service with a college grad, Let me tell you a little story.
  I worked with a 1st Lt., he was griping about his pay to me and my boss, “I can’t believe this, I have a BS in Eng. and I have been in the military for 3 years and only make $65k.” At that time I was an E-6, had been in 15 years and had a BS in Computer Systems Design, I sympathized with him, and told him, “Yah, I feel ya, I have been in for 15 years and only make $45k. and have to raise my family on that.”
  The problem is civilians only look at the top end or Officers pay and gauge everything on that, they always forget about the enlisted ranks, and how these “Benefits” affect them. If you take away, say the commissaries from the officers, or upper enlisted ranks, it won’t hurt them as much, but the lower ranks, starting out a family, that is where you hurt. Plus overseas, try living on Japan’s economy, any savings you get by taking away a self-sufficient commissary system; you now lose in paying COLA to everyone stationed overseas.
  Plus, as far as chow halls, contracting them out to host countries work so well as long as they don’t poison your troops, like in Iraq/Afghan/Qutar
  
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- Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra
  Posted on March 5, 2013 at 3:48pm
  VRW:
  And I have read articles from the Army times, AF Times over the years, they always slant more toward policy and supporting administration side, than really supporting the military member. I have been around the military for a long time, both in and out of uniform, and a lot of these decisions look good on paper, give someone a big “Attaboy”, but end up costing more and causing bigger headaches down the road. I am currently dealing with a cost savings idea, to save $500k, 4 years ago, that is now costing us over $2M to fix and is costing us major operational impacts. I have seen this over and over, spend dollars to save a nickel today. And a lot of what they are talking about in this article, it looks good on paper, sounds good to someone in committee, but stinks when put into practice. And the guys on the ground are the ones that get to pick up the pieces.
  
  Hey, in the 90′s, McPeak said, “If it don’t fly or fight, contract it out”. That was supposed to save us millions of dollars, it did up front, but 15 years later, it is costing us billions in contracting costs for things uniform members used to do, and we had our own military facilites to do repairs. Now we get to go through a contractor every three to 5 years and go through start up costs. No savings and worse service.
  
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- DissenterKnight
  Posted on March 5, 2013 at 3:57pm
  And what about the domestic military bases in the desert southwest; could be that those schools are the only option to a real burden on local tax payers! You live on base -as most folks do in the isolated bases- you don’t pay local taxes. Should we ask a tiny population base to provide school systems for military dependents?
  
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- DPRHawaii
  Posted on March 5, 2013 at 4:40pm
  DOD should get rid of Commissaries not outside of CONUS and shut down all exchanges not out of CONUS. Let grocery stores and department stores compete to put a store on the bases. They can pay to put a store on base and MWR can make money off of that.
  DOD would save a ton of money that can be used to pay down the Debt.
  The liberals are now treating military like other groups, trying to buy votes with money, bennies etc. I’m all for taking care of the military as a retired Marine, but there is room to cut.
  
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- Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra
  Posted on March 5, 2013 at 5:05pm
  @DPRHawaii
  AAFES is self sufficient…shutting that down saves the DoD NOTHING. DECA that runs the commissary system is also self sufficient, there again, shutting that down saves the DoD…..Nothing. In fact AAFES contributes money to the MWR system for supporting overseas bases and all the FOB bases in Afgan. They help keep internet, phone and other moral services for these people in these war theaters. So, cutting AAFES and DECA saves nothing in the budget, and now you have to pick up the slack in other areas that were being supported because of AAFES and DECA. That is what I am talking about with these short sighted, spend dollars to save a nickel decisions. And it’s another reason civilians look at something on paper, but don’t really understand how the system works, or what it will take to replace what they want to take away.
  
  It’s like, if I look at the police dept and say, these guys, driving around in a charger or mustang, they don’t need that, why can’t they patrol on bicycles and smart cars? We can save soooo much money in gas and vehicles. But what happens when a bad guy either runs over the bicycle cop, or the smart car can’t keep up with the getaway car. But hey, they saved a nickel, so what if the unintended consequences are a disaster.
  
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- PublicArtillery
  Posted on March 6, 2013 at 9:36am
  man you guys type a lot!
  
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VRW Conspirator
Posted on March 5, 2013 at 2:53pm
WELL LA-TEE-DA look at that Gomer….$70 B in savings and you didn’t even need the sequestration crap to kick in…that alone would make up for the sequestration without the cutting of 144,000 active duty personnel from NEEDED positions…
AND…you would actually be cutting more personnel overall…340,000…so we would have a leaner, meaner military and be saving money as well….
Combine that with pulling soldiers and airmen home from foreign locations they don’t need to be in anymore….i.e. England and Germany and other bases around the world, like Japan….and you can save billions more…. I bet we can get it up to $100 B in savings…and if you force all those Line Officers out that are just desk jockeys and always have been….I bet you can get even more leaner, meaner, and functional….
If you have stars on your shoulder and you have NEVER been in a theatre where there was the threat of attack….you need to go….
the Navy only needs 1 Admiral per carrier battle group….and maybe 3-4 more back home at the DoD…Army, Marines, Air Force only need 1 General per base and maybe 3-4 more back home at DoD

there are 38 four-star officers in all branches now….currently the number of flag officers is capped at 658 for all branches…WOW!! and only 25% of those can be over a 2 star…so that means we have WAY TOO many of these guys just sitting and waiting at a desk somewhere for promotion.. DUMP THEM first before any E1-E8

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BROBB549
Posted on March 5, 2013 at 2:51pm
Gonzo,
Haven’t you heard, Dumbocrats don’t cut spending, they only raise taxes. That is the only true way that they know to come up with more money.

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WuWuZat
Posted on March 5, 2013 at 2:48pm
How about teaching your children math and science, how to protect themselves, how to build something, and then letting the government spend itself into oblivion and bankruptcy.
Then, when all of the tax feeders have starved due to a lack of government support, our children can rebuild. Hopefully they won’t make the same mistakes ours and past generations have made by putting useless career politicians in a position of power to simply vote or mandate a good living for their own families at the expense of ours.

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- frgough
  Posted on March 6, 2013 at 1:02pm
  Yeah. This has become my philosophy. Personal preparedness so that we are left standing after the collapse and can rebuild.
  
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IMCHRISTIAN
Posted on March 5, 2013 at 2:48pm
I was just wondering, if like the Fort Hood killer, it has taken forever to prosecute but if drone are available for hits on others would it could it be possible to hit them right away?. If for some other use then why the secrecy. Why spend money on them…. duh

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Gargent_Furball
Posted on March 5, 2013 at 2:43pm
Governemnt workers loosing an hour or two, Oh My.

Good. They are way over paid and there are too many of them. Trim the Fat

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Snowleopard {gallery of cat folks}
Posted on March 5, 2013 at 2:42pm
Something of interest several callers to the Limbaugh show have mentioned, along with other radio shows, is that most of the cuts in the military are in Republican areas. This is being used by Obama to once again punish those who stand in his way of being Emperor.

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- soybomb315_II
  Posted on March 5, 2013 at 2:48pm
  Oh please. The special interests will always cry foul whenever someone takes away their entitlement. If we are going to cut a measely $85 billion, we cant cry when a few republican districts lose a billion of military money. There is no way to cut equally – let the axe fall or it will not fall at all….
  
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- RJJinGadsden
  Posted on March 5, 2013 at 2:49pm
  SNOW, Clinton did a lot of that too back during the base closures. Not all were in the Red States, but the greatest majority where.
  
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- Fubared
  Posted on March 5, 2013 at 8:27pm
  Tofu, sounds like you are willing to delve into RP’s pork haul? Someone else was going to get it right, may as well be RP getting it right? How is the hi-speed rail doing in TX?
  
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- Fubared
  Posted on March 5, 2013 at 8:31pm
  RP had 41 earmark projects in 11′ alone?
  “For FY 2011, Rep. Paul submitted requests for 41 earmarks worth $157,093,544. The previous year, he submitted 54 earmarks totaling a whopping $398,460,640, including $2.5 million for a redevelopment project in Baytown, Texas. Among the essential public services that the earmark would finance were “trash cans…and decorative street lighting.”
  Boy, sure wish we wouldn’t have laughed at the bots quite as much. More maybe huh?
  
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banjarmon
Posted on March 5, 2013 at 2:37pm
CUT ALL Money to the commander and chief!!! I can see the US saving BILLIONS!!

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afvetfirewoman
Posted on March 5, 2013 at 2:35pm
Free cell phones can go; duplications at the Federal level of departments of education and wildlife management. OK just approved legislation that able-bodied persons must work at least 35 hours per week to receive welfare, and food stamps. Coburn is all about small government.

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- Daddy Hawg
  Posted on March 5, 2013 at 2:41pm
  Why not give those on welfare the option of working for the state at minimum wage or losing the welfare check. Seems like it could solve the worker shortages for the state and get some work out of the freeloaders.
  
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- soybomb315_II
  Posted on March 5, 2013 at 2:50pm
  Yea the house of representatives has had their chance for decades to cut out this waste. They only add to the waste. Republicans in the house, led by Boehner, do not have the courage to FORCE a vote/government shutdown and so the only option is to use blunt force of sequestration.
  
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- MIBUGNU2
  Posted on March 5, 2013 at 3:08pm
  Eliminate BamaFo’s by 70%.. Drug Test ALL Welfare Recipients.
  PUT Recipients to WORK picking up trash, painting buildings
  with Graffiti, teach these people you get NOTHING for FREE !!!
  surely these Highly Paid City Managers have IMAGINATIONS.
  The FREEBIE in Chief is the worst thing that has ever happened
  to this Country !!!! over 50% of TAKERS and GIMMIES..NOT RIGHT !!
  
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Daddy Hawg
Posted on March 5, 2013 at 2:33pm
How about DHS cancelling the order for the 2,700 MRAP (Mine Resistant Armor Protected) vehicles at a cost of $500,000 each ($1.7 Billion). They would rather release a few thousand criminals into the wild and then try to disarm the civilian population.

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wmcritter
Posted on March 5, 2013 at 2:29pm
Every large organization naturally develops a burdensome bureaucracy and inefficiencies, it’s just human nature. However, in the private sector, this natural tendency is recognized and managed because it has to be. If not, then the entity will lose market to smaller and more efficient competition. The problem is that government has no competition, therefore there is no motivation to be efficient, and is often encouraged to be as inefficient as possible. The term “efficient government” is an oxymoron, it is a physical impossibility. Life is competition and competition is life; without it, sloth, inefficiency, and death are inevitable and unavoidable.

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soybomb315_II
Posted on March 5, 2013 at 2:27pm
Imagine that…..it IS possible to cut some military spending

And Coburn didn’t even talk about the F-35

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- RJJinGadsden
  Posted on March 5, 2013 at 2:44pm
  Damn, he left out breakfast in a combat zone too.
  
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- Caniac Steve
  Posted on March 5, 2013 at 3:09pm
  he puts out several reports a year..and the savings are astonding..the other thing Both houses of Congress can do but don’t is get ride of Baseline Budgeting..it is killing us fiscally as those continuing resolutions do..
  
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- Dismayed Veteran
  Posted on March 5, 2013 at 3:45pm
  @RJJ
  
  There is nothing like powdered eggs for breakfast in the monsoon.
  
  As a military dependent attending school in Japan from 1954-1957, I can vouch for the value of the PX and Commissary. We used to get #10 cans of processed beef once every other week. We lived high off the hog. I lived in Army housing from my birth through 10 grade when my dad retired. The housing was similar to HUD housing.
  
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riseandshine
Posted on March 5, 2013 at 2:26pm
Consult Ron Paul.

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- soybomb315_II
  Posted on March 5, 2013 at 2:46pm
  LOL
  
  Yeah, lets not re-invent the wheel
  
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AUsername
Posted on March 5, 2013 at 2:18pm
cut the standing army, we don’t need a standing army.

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- Gonzo
  Posted on March 5, 2013 at 2:27pm
  There you go! Brilliant!
  
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- Cavallo
  Posted on March 5, 2013 at 2:33pm
  I’d be happy just getting rid of most of DHS. That behemoth is one of the bigger threats to our liberty. It’s likely trying to turn into that domestic army that bobo wanted so bad in 2008,
  
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- jrow98
  Posted on March 5, 2013 at 2:36pm
  i half agree with u we need an army to be ready to go if we are attacked but we do not need anything nearly as large as what we have now.
  
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- Fubared
  Posted on March 5, 2013 at 2:41pm
  A user has to be the old Individualism. Has to be. What says you Windy? Same crap.
  
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- soybomb315_II
  Posted on March 5, 2013 at 2:55pm
  We have a right to bear arms which provides the government a supply of warm bodies who know how to shoot. So what is the purpose of a standing army?
  
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- VRW Conspirator
  Posted on March 5, 2013 at 3:00pm
  the article told you that we could cut 340,000 of them since they do non-deployable jobs… and we should….i also agree with no PX on base….let Kroger or Walmart or some other private entity come on base and build a supermarket, employee the non-active duty spouses and children of active duty personnel…and boom…pay the DoD a rental fee or % of the gross….
  most bases have a Walmart and chain supermarket literally right outside the front gates, within a mile or less…
  eliminate the flag officers that we don’t need and all the officers down the line that support them and the civilian personnel at the DoD that support the flag bureaucrats and I bet we could cut another $70 B from the DoD budget….
  
  the standing army would be leaner and meaner and more efficient and better off in the long run….
  
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- Fubared
  Posted on March 5, 2013 at 8:22pm
  Tofu, uh, I get the whole weed thing with the bots, but uh, lay off sometimes. Have you heard of Mexico ad the fun narco types they export? Does Russia, Iran, N Korea, China ring any bells at all, even through all the smoke? On occasion you have something decent, perhaps even insightful to say. Hearken back to those times once in a while.
  
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Stoic one
Posted on March 5, 2013 at 2:17pm
and none of that will hurt anyone..

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team1blazer
Posted on March 5, 2013 at 2:11pm
Study, government = waste. Poor bookkeeping, lack of oversight, no accountability to shareholders

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Gonzo
Posted on March 5, 2013 at 2:10pm
Cut all funding to NPR, PBS and Planned Parenthood and don’t blow $50 million on new TSA uniforms right before the sequester kicks in. Then hang on to the $250 million we handed Morsi and maybe there would be fewer people to furlough. But I do hear those new uniforms are sharp!

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- The-Monk
  Posted on March 5, 2013 at 2:20pm
  Hi Gonzo,
  
  So sharp they shouldn’t be allowed in airports or on planes….
  
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- SimpleTruths
  Posted on March 5, 2013 at 2:23pm
  How about we cut all tax exemptions to churches? Not a dime out of your pocket, what do you care.
  
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- Gonzo
  Posted on March 5, 2013 at 2:35pm
  How does raising taxes reduce spending Simpleton? Did you ride the short bus to school?
  
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Cavallo
Posted on March 5, 2013 at 2:07pm
How about the TSA spending millions on new uniforms. Nearly $1000 per employee.

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- Gonzo
  Posted on March 5, 2013 at 2:21pm
  Jinx
  
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