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Defense Spending Set for Steep Decline

Posted at noon on Dec. 6, 2012

Tax rates and entitlement reforms have taken center stage in the “fiscal cliff” debate, but Steve Vogel reports on one area of government spending that could play a very large role in deficit reduction: defense spending.

“In the event of sequestration, the Pentagon will face an additional $500 billion in cuts over the next decade, atop the $487 billion already approved. If a deal is reached avoiding the fiscal cliff…the additional cuts will be less severe but could still amount to several hundred billion dollars over the next 10 years.”

“The civilian defense workforce of  approximately 700,000 could shrink to between 500,000 and 600,000.”

1comment
Budget & Taxes, Military & Security

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  • Richard Healy

    With DOD and DOE’s current aggregate annual expenditures for military purposes exceeding $1,000,000,000 these cuts amount to less than 10%, and considerably less than that, when inflation factors are included. We are not at war nor is the country in the mood for war in the future after the two Asian military disasters of the Bush era. It is time to corral the generals and admirals by putting half of them out to pasture and telling the rest the “days of wine and roses” have come to an end. The same holds true with the real estate DOD rents around the globe for military purposes, the manpower we have stationed in countries sufficiently able to provide for their own national defense, and the numbers of ships and nuclear armadas we have afloat on the 7 seas. We don’t need them to defend our shores so lets do away with them.

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