Lynn C. Woolsey: “Every one of us in this Congress believes that keeping the Nation safe, as well as providing benefits to our veterans as…”

“Every one of us in this Congress believes that keeping the Nation safe, as well as providing benefits to our veterans as promised, is our very top priority. It's a question, however, of just how do we do that. And a decade of war and military occupation is not the best way. Whenever spending cuts are on the agenda, as they are right now with the supercommittee racing to meet its deadline, military and defense programs continue to get a pass. Why should the Pentagon get a blank check while safety-net programs have to look for ``change in the couch cushions'' to keep their programs going? It's time for the Pentagon to share in the sacrifice, especially since it's been so generously funded over the years, a 50 percent increase in the DOD budget over the last decade, bigger in real dollars today than it was at the height of the Cold War. Ending the war in Afghanistan would save at least $10 billion a month--actually, it's more like 12 now--to say nothing of the lives we would save and the injuries that would be avoided. But I think we should go further in cutting the base Pentagon budget. Just to give a few examples, I'm a longtime advocate of eliminating the V-22 Osprey aircraft. It's a program that, if we eliminated it, would save $10 billion, and it's a program that is notorious for cost overruns and for huge safety concerns. And we can dramatically reduce the Nation's nuclear arsenal.…”