In fact, the Pentagon (in spite of all the talk) has absolutely no plans to accept or work within budget cuts. And we know who's really in charge.
According to the New York Times, independent military analysts have looked into prospective budget cuts for the bloated military and have pronounced them "agonizing but manageable." In other words, the kind of diet Americans are used to. But not our military establishment, the biggest fatties of our population.
The analysts, who have close ties to the Pentagon, expressed amazement that a department that plans for every contingency was not planning for this one. They laid out the possibility of cutbacks to most weapons programs, a further reduction in the size of the Army, large layoffs among the Defense Department’s 700,000 civilian employees and reduced military training time — such as on aircraft like the F-22 advanced jet fighter, which flies at Mach 2 and costs $18,000 an hour to operate, mostly because of the price of fuel.
Other possibilities include cutting the number of aircraft carriers to 10 from 11 — the United States still has more than any other country — as well as increased fees for the military’s generous health care system, changes in military retirement, base closings around the country and delayed maintenance on ships and buildings.
“I’m not suggesting these are smart things to do, necessarily,” said Todd Harrison, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, a military policy and research group in Washington. “But if you had to do it, you could do it.” ...NYT
