A 25% Cut for the Pentagon? Key Dems Say Unnecessary Defense Spending Is Crippling the U.S. and Shou [View all]

http://www.prwatch.org/news/2013/01/11939/25-cut-pentagon-key-dems-say-unnecessary-defense-spending-crippling-us-and-should

A 25% Cut for the Pentagon? Key Dems Say Unnecessary Defense Spending Is Crippling the U.S. and Should Be Part of Debt Debate
Posted by Lisa Graves on January 14, 2013

The largest Democratic Party organization in the nation has called on Congress to support a 25% cut in Pentagon spending. The California Democratic Party -- which includes more than 2,000 representatives of the state's more than seven million Democrats -- adopted this policy in the past year in the face of threats by Republicans in Congress to refuse to allow the U.S. to increase its credit limit.

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Despite this mandate, the two most powerful Californians in Congress -- Representative Nancy Pelosi, the Minority Leader of the U.S. House of Representatives, and Senator Dianne Feinstein, Chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence -- have not advocated for what their core constituents have asked that they and the other 38 Democratic members of the California Congressional delegation put on the table: a 25% cut in defense spending.

CSIS Department of Defense budget projectionAlthough California has a number of military installations and defense contractors, much of the money the Pentagon spends is on foreign bases and foreign wars, in Iraq and Afghanistan. The billions for the lengthy military actions in the Middle East are put on top of the Pentagon's core budget by calling this spending "Overseas Contingency Operations," which are counted as separate from regular appropriations for defense. The California Democratic Party is urging the 40 Dems in the state's 55-member congressional delegation to support cuts in the Pentagon's overall budget to "ensure that military spending prioritizes defense of the homeland and not the siting of numerous military bases on foreign soil as a substitute for robust diplomatic engagement."

But this call to decrease unnecessary military spending by 25% is not yet part of the national debate on spending and debt, even as DC girds for another major showdown over spending and cuts. Meanwhile, some Republicans have renewed threats to block the raising of America's credit limit, and many of them have also demanded that the defense budget not face any significant cuts.