Tuesday, May 1, 2012

Mitt Romney's plan for the Military

Mitt on the issues: Defense.


"The Obama administration’s cuts have left us with a military inventory largely composed of weapons designed forty to fifty years ago."

And why didn't Bush fix that when he was in office?

The US outspends every other country on the planet.

 "The USA with its massive spending budget, is the principal determinant of the current world trend, and its military expenditure now accounts for just under half of the world total, at 43% of the world total"

Defense spending has continued to increase.Not decrease.

"The average age of our tanker aircraft is 47 years, of strategic bombers 34 years. While the weapons in our arsenal remain formidable, they are well along on the path to obsolescence. Along with the aging process, there has been a precipitous decline in sheer numbers. The U.S. Navy has only 284 ships today, the lowest level since 1916."

The biggest cuts in # of ships came from 2000-2007.

We had 318 total ships in 2000. 285 now. There are more being built to replace ships that have retired but are not yet completed. 


Here is one.

Here are two more.



 Our Air Force, which had 82 fighter squadrons at the end of the Cold War, has been reduced to 39 today. President Obama has cut funding for national missile defense."

Wait a minute. Mitt is saying that our average tanker aircraft is 47 years old. Why weren't more built during the Bush administration then?

Secondly, why are we in need of cold war totals today? We have better fighters that are supposed to do more with one fighter than many (and they cost a ton) like the F-35.

And there is this from January 2012:  "But the review also rededicated the Department of Defense to supporting new military aviation programmes, including the next-generation bomber and the Boeing KC-46A tanker." - what was that about tankers Mitt?

"This will not be a cost-free process. We cannot rebuild our military strength without paying for it. Mitt will begin by reversing Obama-era defense cuts"

From 2008-2012 the budget has increased.


From about $400 Billion in 2002 to $900 billion in 2012.

"During World War II the United States built 1,000 ships per year with 1,000 people employed in the Bureau of Ships, as the purchasing department of the Department of the Navy was then called. By the 1980s, we were building seventeen ships per year, with 4,000 people in purchasing. Today, when we are building only nine ships a year, the Pentagon manages the shipbuilding process with some 25,000 people."

Wait - so we ARE still building ships to add to the largest Navy in the world?

"With proper management, we can do far better in controlling costs and getting more for our taxpayer dollars."

Whoa, hold on there a second. Mitt wants to increase the budget and control costs? So basically, more money, less people working, but more weapons? Why not decrease the budget to reflect the cuts in personnel some - or would that be too 'liberal'?

"The cost of preparedness may sometimes be high, but the cost of unpreparedness is almost always higher — not just in tax dollars but in human life and in the survival of liberty and representative government."

No one is saying not to be prepared or not to have a defense budget, it is the level that is generally being discussed. How many more nukes does one need? If we cut that 25,000 people above down to 2,000 that would save money and the budget could be lowered (but as Mitt says, he wants to increase it).

Next up - More from Mitt's issues section. 



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