Foreign Policy has an article by Col. Douglas MacGregor who proposes the following steps to reduce the Pentagon budget:
Estimated annualized savings resulting from withdrawals from overseas garrisons and restructuring the United States' forward military presence: $239 billion
Estimated annualized savings from reorganizing the Army and Marine Corps: $18 billion
Estimated annualized savings from reductions in naval surface forces and Marine fixed-wing aviation: $10 billion
Estimated annualized savings from eliminating the F-35B: $2.5 billion
Estimated annualized savings from reducing the number of unified commands and single service headquarters: $1 billion
Estimated annualized savings from eliminating the Department of Homeland Security and restructuring national intelligence and the Army National Guard: $7 billion
I am far from really knowledgeable about the details of the defense budget, but it makes a heck of a lot of sense for us to really scale back our presence in the rest of the world. It probably also makes sense to do something about DHS. And MacGregor makes a good case for his other projected cuts. All in all it seemed to make sense for me to post my reaction to this article. However as is my wont, before doing so, I thought I should learn something about the colonel.
Google showed that he is truly an iconoclast; he was shunted off the promotion track because of his unconventional ideas. But many have experienced the same reaction for being unconventional. Google also led me to the colonel's web site, which is clearly unconventional. Being a military man, he has a mission statement, which is really a brief resume. Being a marketer, he provides a sample of his speaker's letter, which is a direct mail pitch to hire him as a speaker for $4,000 - $10,000 a speech. Being a 21st century guy, he has a YouTube Video Channel; I was especially struck by "Lunch-on-Libya" a video which advertised an upcoming speech to the Northern Virgina Tea Party. You'll find other interesting videos on his channel.
Does the fact that he is on the opposite political spectrum from me invalidate his argument re the defense budget? I think not.
Google showed that he is truly an iconoclast; he was shunted off the promotion track because of his unconventional ideas. But many have experienced the same reaction for being unconventional. Google also led me to the colonel's web site, which is clearly unconventional. Being a military man, he has a mission statement, which is really a brief resume. Being a marketer, he provides a sample of his speaker's letter, which is a direct mail pitch to hire him as a speaker for $4,000 - $10,000 a speech. Being a 21st century guy, he has a YouTube Video Channel; I was especially struck by "Lunch-on-Libya" a video which advertised an upcoming speech to the Northern Virgina Tea Party. You'll find other interesting videos on his channel.
Does the fact that he is on the opposite political spectrum from me invalidate his argument re the defense budget? I think not.
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