U.S. Increases Defense Spending

With the spiraling federal deficit now is the time to reform the aging and antiquated defense budget. Unfortunately President Obama campaigned on reducing federal spending, now he is going to increase defense spending to over $700 billion dollars next year. Where is the transformation, where is the transparency that he campaigned on?

The Defense Department has always been in need of overhaul of how it spends taxpayer’s money. Currently the Defense Department has an outdated acquisition and procurement system that is more rooted in the 19^th century than in the modern 21^st century.

The Defense Department spends too much, with little oversight or accountability on where the money is spent. Congress is equally guilty if not more so, they use the Defense Department as way to bring the pork back to their state or district. The loudest voices on curbing military waste or the ones who campaign against defense spending, until it affects their state or district. This is hypocrisy at its finest!

Last year Senator Feinstein and Boxer both of California fought against the cancelation of the of additional C-17 cargo aircraft that the air force didn’t want, but it was forced to spend $2.7 billion dollars that could be spent in more crucial areas or not at all. Look at the how military spending is allocated and follow the trail back to a senator or congressional representative.

The rate of defense spending is unsustainable, but I also agree with the president by moving the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan back into the defense bill and not as a supplemental as was the case in the Bush Administration. Even if you remove both wars, you still are spending around $530 billion on defense. Does anyone really know what’s in the defense bill?

The time is now to get a handle on how the pentagon spends the taxpayer’s money, it’s time to modernize the pentagon’s accounting and acquisitions procedures. Every phase of the pentagon’s spending procedure and duplication between branches needs to end.

We are going bankrupt as a nation and it has to stop now!