COMMENTARY | President Barack Obama made a trek over to the Pentagon to deliver sobering news: Pentagon spending cuts are on the way. It's about time.
Defense spending has exploded over the past decade and it's time to take a paring knife to that budget. A paring knife -- not an ax.
The Associated Press reported that Obama announced on Thursday dramatic defense spending cuts over the next decade in order to reflect new American defense and security priorities. While Obama didn't outline any details, his assumption that defense spending must drop is wise. Actually, it's always a good idea to enhance and tweak our defense strategy, including expenditures.
It is a bad idea to cut any programs that are already underway. Nothing irks taxpayers more than to hear that a previously funded project will be canceled because government changed its mind. Obama said future considerations for defense spending must include health care and retirement costs for those leaving military service.
What I don't want to see is a return to the Jimmy Carter era cuts that impeded the military's ability to respond effectively to a world crisis. We do not need to return to a time when active duty personnel were paid so poorly that they actually qualified for food stamps. We never need to find ourselves with so few spare parts that our fighters cannot take to the air.
Any comprehensive review of defense spending should also include a close look at how we spend money on domestic security as well. Homeland Security cannot claim to be doing a good job with their resources when millions of illegal aliens continue to pour across our southern borders every year, but ABC News reported a TSA agent in Las Vegas successfully seized a cupcake from a passenger before she boarded a commercial airliner at Christmas.
All things in moderation should be the key to any budget cuts. Obama has his plans -- I'm sure Congress has its own ideas. The true test will be for the administration to pass anything through a divided Congress in an election year. Good luck with that Mr. President.
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