White House Tries to Trim Military Cost:
By LESLIE WAYNE
For the first time since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the Pentagon is feeling pressure from the White House to rein in rapidly rising spending and, with its budget reaching record levels, it is now looking to cut billions of dollars in labor and equipment costs.
Pentagon officials are in the midst of working out the final details of $32 billion in cuts that are to begin with the 2007 budget. They are also meeting with military contractors and members of Congress to prepare them for a slowdown in the double-digit growth of Pentagon spending.
Pressure for the cuts comes from the Bush administration's growing awareness that the nation cannot afford to pay for new weapons systems costing hundreds of billions of dollars, fight wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and cover major domestic demands - whether rebuilding Gulf Coast areas damaged by Hurricane Katrina, financing the new Medicare prescription benefit or reducing the federal budget deficit.
At the Pentagon, planners are facing hard choices between the staffing they want to sustain and the types of weapon systems they want to have. While there have been periodic attempts recently to hold the line on some costly weapons, this is the first serious threat to the next-generation weapons that military contractors have been developing for years.
This would be the first reversal in the Pentagon budget since 2001, when a steady climb brought it to levels not seen since the Reagan era. Spending for the current year, not including the supplemental appropriations to cover the costs of Iraq and Afghanistan, has reached $444 billion, a growth of 41 percent since 2001, according to the Pentagon."
By LESLIE WAYNE
For the first time since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the Pentagon is feeling pressure from the White House to rein in rapidly rising spending and, with its budget reaching record levels, it is now looking to cut billions of dollars in labor and equipment costs.
Pentagon officials are in the midst of working out the final details of $32 billion in cuts that are to begin with the 2007 budget. They are also meeting with military contractors and members of Congress to prepare them for a slowdown in the double-digit growth of Pentagon spending.
Pressure for the cuts comes from the Bush administration's growing awareness that the nation cannot afford to pay for new weapons systems costing hundreds of billions of dollars, fight wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and cover major domestic demands - whether rebuilding Gulf Coast areas damaged by Hurricane Katrina, financing the new Medicare prescription benefit or reducing the federal budget deficit.
At the Pentagon, planners are facing hard choices between the staffing they want to sustain and the types of weapon systems they want to have. While there have been periodic attempts recently to hold the line on some costly weapons, this is the first serious threat to the next-generation weapons that military contractors have been developing for years.
This would be the first reversal in the Pentagon budget since 2001, when a steady climb brought it to levels not seen since the Reagan era. Spending for the current year, not including the supplemental appropriations to cover the costs of Iraq and Afghanistan, has reached $444 billion, a growth of 41 percent since 2001, according to the Pentagon."
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