WASHINGTON -- According to recent reports, Pentagon officials are considering cuts in several weapons programs as they develop their 2004 budget proposal. If defense spending is to be kept within reasonable bounds, these are exactly the sorts of reductions that will be required.
Otherwise a total defense budget that has already grown from $300 billion when U.S. President George W. Bush took office in 2001 to roughly $400 billion in 2003 may reach $500 billion by the end of the decade. Although not astronomical as a percent of gross national product, such a budget would deprive the government of resources needed for important domestic programs and for deficit reduction.
The proposed cutbacks, developed by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld confidant Stephen Cambone at the Pentagon's office of Program Analysis and Evaluation, are said to focus on five main weapons programs. Three are in the army, one in the navy, and one in the air force. Meanwhile, the Marine Corps V-22 program is surely only another accident away from major retrenchment or cancellation.