The budget deal between Congress and President Obama calls for reducing the defense budget by about 500-billion dollars over the next ten years. Half of all the cuts in federal spending would be made in defense.
What gets overlooked is that defense spending has already been reduced by another half trillion dollars—a fact often obscured by the cost of operations in Afghanistan and Iraq.
So what would an overall trillion-dollar cut mean for our military?
Two of our eleven aircraft carrier strike forces would be abolished. Missile defense would be scaled back. Advance positioning of American troops would be pulled back. Aircraft fleets would continue their downsizing.
The Secretary of Defense sums it up in one word—”devastating.”
Defense is supposed to be the first function of our government—not the first to be cut back.
From The Heritage Foundation, I’m Ernest Istook.