Burnt Orange Report

Rumsfeld doing his part

By Nathan Nance

Guest post by Nate Nance

There is a great article in Slate today about the effects of proposed cuts in DoD spending. Some of us laymen might assume that cutting a billion dollars from spending this year would save us a billion dollars from the budget, but you'd be wrong. As with everything else involved in Pentagon budgets, it is more complicated than that.

This is a pretty good explanation of what happens in Pentagon outlay spending and how much money we might actually shave off the deficit in the next fiscal year.

The important thing is that the administration is at least realizing people care about large structural deficits. Though they are paying lip service to cutting the fat, I'm predicting now that actual spending will increase at Defense the next fiscal year after adding in supplemental appropriations for Iraq and Afghanistan, which could total $90 billion, but for some reason are not factored in when writing the budget or determining what the year's budget deficit might be. I guess the guys at OMB didn't take Honors English in college or something.

This is a guest post from Nathan Nance Nance. He can be reached at nate_nance@yahoo.com.