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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Karen Lawrence who wrote (53652)	10/21/2002 12:38:51 PM
From: Hawkmoon	Respond to of 281500

At the time..."Bush's huge tax cut has reduced the Administration's fiscal flexibility and may leave Rumsfeld's budget looking a lot like the much-loathed Clinton blueprint" And look at what Rumsfeld was involved in Karen... Like I said, he was unwilling to just "throw money" at the defense department. He was tasked with completely revamping the Pentagon budget process and restructuring it for the next 30 years, not the last. And he was opposed by the vested interests in the Pentagon who were locked into fighting the last war, not the next... Big money and the promise of lucratic defense contractor jobs create an inertia that is difficult to overcome by a new civilian SecDef. And if you recall during Bush's campaign, he stated that the only justifiable reason for engaging in deficit spending (which an even larger DOD budget increase would create) was in the event of war. And on 9/11 war was what was declared against us. And we forget the tremendous amount of money that the Homeland Defense department is going to require. Money that will be channeled away from DOD and into internal security and law enforcement. Personally, I think we can get enough mileage out of a $300 Billion military budget if we deploy the funds properly and efficiently to accomplish the missions we will likely fight. I'm a big believer in JDAMs (GPS guided) bombs and unmanned UAV programs. I also believe we need the F-22 and JSF and Crusader, as well as more Spectre gunships, because unconventional warfare requires force multipliers just as air support and artillery. But I'm not convinced we need more tanks.. We just need to maintain the ones we already have properly. But the bottom line is that the original 2001-2002 DOD budgets were hostage to maintaining a balanced budget as well as spurring economic recovery. And beans will win out over bullets during any peacetime period. Hawk