Barney Frank wants to gut the military:
A panel commissioned by Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) is recommending nearly $1 trillion in cuts to the Pentagon’s budget during the next 10 years.
The Sustainable Defense Task Force, a commission of scholars from a broad ideological spectrum appointed by Frank, the House Financial Services Committee chairman, laid out actions the government could take that could save as much as $960 billion between 2011 and 2020.
Measures presented by the task force include making significant reductions to the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program, which has strong support from Defense Secretary Robert Gates; delaying the procurement of a new midair refueling tanker the Air Force has identified as one of its top acquisition priorities; and reducing the Navy’s fleet to 230 ships instead of the 313 eyed by the service.
Remember that we cancelled the F-22 because President Obama’s top brass decided that the F-35 could carry the load. We can’t now cancel the F-35 as well. Frank’s task force also wants to cancel the V-22 Osprey (now that it’s finally working), scrap European missile defense, and slash our nuclear deterrent (cut warheads by a third and scrap bombers entirely). And it’s not just technology, they want to slash the human side as well: they want to “reform” military pay and health care and cut recruitment.
Is Frank under the impression that the world has been getting safer? Still, kudos to him for having the chutzpah to appoint his very own panel and not even pretend to make it bipartisan.
POSTSCRIPT: You want to save $1 trillion over ten years without endangering our national security? I’ve got an idea.
(Via Innocent Bystanders.)
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