Speaking of Pentagon budget battles…
“Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Michael Moseley…told a Washington audience it might be time to start ‘killing’ programs with cost overruns and delays,” Reuters reports, hopping on Inside Defense’s coverage.
Cuts to major weapons programs could be “well in excess” of $10 billion just for fiscal year 2007, said Loren Thompson of the Virginia-based Lexington Institute, predicting that fighter jets and shipbuilding were particularly vulnerable to cuts…
A Pentagon team on October 5 recommended several steps, such as canceling the DD(X) destroyer being developed by Northrop Grumman Corp.; cutting tactical air forces by nearly a third; further delaying the Army’s Future Combat Systems program, led by Boeing Co.; building more fast sealift ships and submarines; and developing a new long-range bomber, according to sources familiar with the briefing.
“The administration is determined to use the need for budget cuts to enforce its investment priorities,” Thompson said, predicting the Pentagon would cut Cold War programs such as airplanes, ships and ground vehicles, while maintaining funds for information networks, surveillance systems, communications and satellite programs.
Lawmakers’ priorities were exactly opposite, he said, which could signal a big pending fight over the 2007 budget.
Gen. Moseley sent some mixed signals himself, in his talk. He discussed the need to wiping out programs that are “taking too long” and “keep growing and growing and growing and growing.” But when Inside Defense asked him if that meant that “Space Radar” — the Air Force’s long-delayed, mega-bloated, all-seeing eye-in-the-sky — project — might be put to sleep, “Moseley firmly responded: ‘No.’”
THERE’S MORE: “U.S. military services are drafting worst-case budget plans in anticipation of White House orders to slash many billions of dollars from defense spending in coming years,” Defense News says.
As the Pentagon awaits mid-November budget guidance from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), services are mapping cut options of more than $10 billion across their six-year spending plans. Sources said the brunt will be borne by the defense budgets largest discretionary accounts: procurement and research and development, which totaled $143.8 billion in the fiscal 2005 budget request.
…So Myers wants to cut tactical aircraft on one hand, and then deploy a new bomber with the other?
I’m confused. Only two ways of cheaply (and cheap is a relative term, of course) deploying a new long-range heavy bomber come to mind; either reopen B-52H production lines, or build a “B-767″.
Of course, this just won’t do. Neither airfram is sexy enough to supply sufficient padding for a colonel’s resume.
Seems like they want there cake and eat it to.
No, no, when Moseley says you need to cut programs that are “taking too long” and “keep growing and growing and growing and growing”, he means the big bloated Army and Navy programs, not AF programs. Silly Noah.
The Defense Department was only allocated roughly 70 billion dollars for 2006 R&D.
If they want to cut 10 billion, that means 15% of the entire R&D budget is currently allocated to “bloated programs that have been going on forever and have gotten more and more expensive”.
That is pretty sad. Not to mention all the other programs that probably fit into the “bloated and too expensive” category that arent being cut.
I wonder what our potential is in research versus what the current system outputs. It is weird to me looking at the SBIR budget for example, only around 1 or 2 billion dollars goes to small business’s. The rest is devoured by Boeing and Grumman.
If that isnt capitalism and monopoly I dont know what is.
Gee, I guess the Last Supper didn’t wind up saving everyone money after all.
I hope the OICW program to be dead. What a shame for using Anti-American German’s H&K built weapons and not using one from American firms. That steals the jobs of American firms and will weaken the national military industry. There is also EADS trying to sell its military aircrafts, while European countries attempting to deny American weapons to be sold within Europe.
And the Constitution says you cant allocate money for the Military for more then a year(or something like that). So them allocating money for 6 year programs is unconstitional. IM sure there are programs that receive money every year without congress’s approval at the budget meeting which would breach the constitution.
First our Second Amendment.
Then Privacy.
Now a Military mega business.
I’m in the wrong line of work. I should go work for defense companies so I can legally rip off the taxpayers by producing heaps of no-good ill-thought-out, badly project-managed weapons systems, and attempt to hoodwink the populace by repeating the oft-used mantra of “Our troops deserve the best weapons in the world/It is criminal to send our boys and girls out to war with substandard equipment”. These businesses have een getting away with this rorting for years and will still get away with it for the forseable future. Too greedy! But when one complains about their BS they say you are not patriotic, blah blah blah. Apparently (in my mind atleast) they don’t care for words like “On Time; On Budget; Works as advertised”!
The Air Force has a ridiculously bloated budget that needs to be HALVED. There is no reason a service that has less aircraft than the other two depts of defense and fewer personnel should be afforded remotely near the budget of the Navy and Army.…start slicing and dicing the Air Force down to $50 Billion from $110 billion!
Maybe it is time to remove a dubious asset a independent Air Force. You need Air Power to control the space over land and sea. You do not need an entire independent command structure. Allocate the Long Range Bombers, Logistic and Transport duties to the U.S.N. All tactical Air to the U.S. Army since the Navy and the Marines already have their tactical Air Wings. The saving in uniforms alone will be worth it.