Cuts of an additional $34 billion a year in a baseline budget of $533 billion will not destroy America's defenses. If enacted by the Congress, such cuts would amount to about a 3 percent real decline in defense spending. But that's not why the president's budget proposals are so problematic.
The president claims his budget "puts every kind of spending on the table." But, in fact, it only puts one kind of spending on the table: defense. The FY 2012 budget produced by the administration (the one disavowed by the president's new, new approach) contained cuts in only one federal department: defense. The budget outline presented by President Obama on Thursday contained gauzy figures for cuts in health care; among agencies, only defense was targeted for reductions.
Continue reading Kori Schake at Foreign Policy’s blog Shadow Government…
(photo credit: U.S. Army)
