E-mail updates
Follow on Twitter
Subscribe to RSSA Senate Republican fiscal hawk offered a 74-page menu of Defense Department spending cuts Thursday that could save taxpayers nearly $68 billion over 10 years. Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., said he and his staff had identified several categories of “non-defense spending at the Pentagon,” outlays which he said had “little to do with national security.”
Alex Wong / Getty Images
Sen. Tom Coburn speaks to a journalist at the U.S. Capitol September 19, 2012 in Washington, DC.
At a Capitol Hill press conference, Coburn accused his fellow Senate Republicans of “having a blind eye on spending.” He summed up their approach as “It’s OK to cut spending anywhere except the Defense Department.”
But, he said “to be legitimate and have any integrity on the issue … everything has to be on the table.”
In the fiscal year which ended Sept. 30, defense outlays amounted to $651 billion, 18 percent of total federal spending, which was a decline of about 3 percent from the prior fiscal year.
One target of Coburn’s proposed cuts is personnel. He said there were too many admirals and other high-ranking officers for the size of the military. “We almost now have an admiral for every ship in the Navy,” he told reporters.
Despite much dire talk about the impeding spending cuts mandated by the Budget Control Act – which is part of the “fiscal cliff” at year’s end – there have been “no real cuts yet to the Pentagon,” Coburn said.
Chuck Schumer and Tom Coburn visit Meet the Press to discuss CIA Chief David Petraeus' resignation, the impending fiscal cliff and the aftermath of the 2012 race.
He said members of Congress hadn’t gotten some of “hoped-for, desired increases in spending – and so therefore if we didn’t get the increase in spending, we call that a ‘cut’ in Washington.”
Coburn has also proposed a bill to audit the Defense Department. “One of the biggest problems in the Pentagon is that they have no idea where they’re spending their money – and if you can’t account for it, you can’t measure it and you can’t manage it.”
He said, “I’m a budget hawk, but I’m also a military hawk – I want us to have the best equipment, the best equipped military in the world.” But when the Pentagon buys jets, missiles and other military hardware, Coburn said “we’re getting a whole lot less and spending a whole lot more.”
He also said, “Congress is a failure when it comes to oversight – and beneath that, we’re a failure when we write legislation because we give way too much authority and judgment to the bureaucracies – and the reason we do that is that we don’t know what we’re talking about, so we have to (give authority to executive branch bureaucrats), because we’re not up to speed in terms of level of knowledge … when we legislate.”
Coburn also said $37 billion in cost savings could be achieved by not assigning 340,000 members of the armed forces tasks that could be performed by civilians. He cited an analysis by Defense Business Board, an outside group of veterans and civilians which advises the defense secretary, which found “there is a sizable portion of the active military who are performing what would otherwise be not inherently government work or work that should be more appropriately assigned to DoD civilians. The military are compensated at rates substantially greater than their civilian counterparts….”
Although he’s not a member of his party’s Senate leadership and not a member of the Appropriations or Armed Services committees, Coburn does have some credibility on fiscal matters. He served on the Simpson-Bowles fiscal commission in 2010 and voted for its recommendations of spending cuts and revenue increases through limiting or even eliminating tax deductions and other tax breaks, such as the tax-free status for most people of employer-provided health insurance.
Leave a Comment:
A lot of talk about how little money that it,, except that its about the same amount that ending oil company subsidies would bring in but everyone was ok with that.
Yes---cutting the number of generals seems like a good idea--------they have too much time on their hands to send 30,000 emails to their paramours' (putting it very politely)
When Mr. Coburn says what he says to the public he is singing to the choir. He needs to talk to his brothers in Congress who are the problem. We need to do it all, raise taxes, close loopholes, cut spending, get rid of the special treatment afford some people/companies. And one thing no one is yelling from the top of the mountaintop - stop paying anyone in Congress until they do their job.
Wow...a republican who makes sense and actually has a good idea. I'm impressed.
The Senator has a good point that most here missed.... The Pentagon cannot provide any information on what it spends because it has no idea. China, with a million man army has an annual defense budget of $123 Bln, only 18% of what we spend. Russia's is $73Bln.
Do you really want to pay our military personnel the same wages the Chinese do theirs? Our entire military including Admirals and Generals would be on welfare. But, as others have stated, if Congress would stop forcing weapons programs onto DoD they do not want and stop interfering with base closures and consolidations DoD would be able to save far more than the amount Mr Coburn has proposed. The practice of automatically cutting next year's budget request by the amount you saved last year has got to go as well.
CDR USN (Ret)
It appeared that during the final months of the election, Romney was trying to buy the votes of active military and contractors by protecting the current budgets and promising an additional $2 trillion of spending for them and their programs. Then he comes out and says Obama gifted federal money to select groups to get their votes. There always is a double standard with this party (GOP). Norquest will now cut Mr. Coburn from campaign funding and GOP backing.
Wow...I hope that attitude is contagious
And the big claim the Republicans had against Obama and the defense cuts, Obama was going to cut jobs and the defense and security of the U.S. was going to be threatened. The military didn't want or need more tanks, and various congressmen decided they were going to go ahead and vote to make more just to keep jobs and their constituents happy. So you are dealing more here than just budget cuts with possible layoffs and alienation of the states that are big in the "military industrial complex". This is precisely what Eisenhauer warned us about back in the late 50's.
Nice try, Senator. I'd be impressed with his willingness to look at defense spending from those perspectives, if he had offered them before the recent election. I seriously doubt he'd have been so amicable if the election had gone differently. This smells alot like he realizes that his party is in the senate minority, meaning that Reid has to allow it to be brought to the floor. If the Tea Party and GOP thought they could wash their hands of the impending fiscal cliff of sequestration, they'd simply do what they've been doing --- nothing, no, nix, nada. They are aware that they'll properly receive blame for those across-the-board reductions, so he offers this carrot to see if we'll start to view them as part of the solution, and not the problem.
Wow! $68 Billion over ten years. $6.8 Billion a year. Big deal! Now if he were to come up with $680 Billion over ten years or even $340 Billion over ten years then I would say he is truly courageous and a fiscal hawk. I applaud the man for trying but we need the GOP to really step up.
“We almost now have an admiral for every ship in the Navy,” No wonder they have so much time for affairs, explicit emails, and socializing.
$68 Billion over 10 years??? Let's see, $6.8B per year out of a budget of $650B+...... about 1%??? That my friends is a joke and typical political grandstanding, regardless of party. Be serious!
Let's start at $50B+ per year. We spend so much on the military it is a joke!!!
Sounds good to me, cut personnel then we can have more people unemployed and pay them unemployment instead of wages.
And cut hours for those still working to save on health care...
Yeh wars are so productive. We make stuff and blow some of it up and then let the rest rust. Couldn't we do something a bit more useful with this money and still put people to work?
Hmmm? Wonder if he cleared that with McCain?
Maybe we could save money if Congressional leaders didn't use the military as a taxi, or flying bar, service.
Tell that to Pelosi.
Slodon--Why just Pelosi? You don't think Cantor, Boehner, McConnell and Reid use these services? To be sure, the leadership gets to fly in Air Force planes because of security considerations. One wonders how much use other members of Congress make of the 201st Airlift Squadron.
How many of you Progressives would stand for a 1% cut in Welfare??
Will someone tell me why we need to spend 800 Billion more this year than we did in 2008?
Could you quit stalking these articles with your dumb-a** posts? Can't you go find a Cub Scout to kick or something??
MSH
So you don't know the answer to my questions. So you felt compelled to call names and insult others.
It appears that you know nothing but vile and hateful comments. No wonder our great country is going down the tubes with people like you leading the way.
This is, I believe, the second recent well thought out statement I have heard from Senator Colburn. I understand it's a no-brainer but Senate Republicans rarely connect these dots.
Tom Coburn is for real, and he is trying to forge some sort of workable deal. He gets my vote and respect. We need more Senators like him.
Hey, at least it's a start. Nice to see some of these guys seeing the writing on the wall. Now that's representation - at least, I hope so.
Finally a U.S. Senator who seems to be going beyond the typical vague talk and focusing on something tangible and real... If a Republican Senator can do this for the military, hopefully there is a Democrat who can do this for domestic spending and bring to the table a bipartisan compromise of spending cuts which together with tax increases will allow Congress to avoid the fiscal cliff. Thank you Sen. Coburn for starting Congress out of the starting blocks. As a Democrat I support you and hope your colleagues will come up with an equitable and legitimate proposal for spending cuts in all areas of the federal budget.
Tab--I agree. We need to cut all across the board. There can be no sacred cows (as a retired person, I'll even agree to social security and Medicare being on the table).
A true tea party republican that is not in name only! Wow. I thought he ll would freeze over first. Romney lost with conservatives because he didnt want to cut anything from the military or medicare. Geeze buddy, the entire military is a big and bloated. You want to spend 800 billion per year on this garbage when the nearest countyr is at 150 billion in spending . crazy. Anyway, this guy will be defeated next round. The true insiders can't handle anyone touching their sacred cash.
I am glad he made this proposal, but the Defense Department could probably cut 98 billion dollars every year and not be significantly affected.
Judging from the overall tenor of the remarks, let me offer a slogan for the overwhelmingly popular consensus regarding the need to rein in excessive military expenditures:
"Defense Spending: The Other, Other White Meat!"
nice to hear a responsible elected official speak to the truth of the matter - overspending without oversight and a free check book for the military and the pentagon.
now, will the rest of those dinosaurs wake up in congress and start revising, reviewing and cutting costs immediately. revenue increase is on the table and should be. cutting costs where items or services or products are not needed is good thinking. now put it into operation congress.
hooray for this man and his positive and realistic attidtude. pray the gopers can follow common sense and steward this country onto a correct course of action.
I don't agree with Coburn on very much, but it's wonderful to find a Republican with the cojones to take on the military-industrial-political complex. We spend more on our military (not counting covert CIA operations such as drones) than the next fourteen nations combined. We really need to ask ourselves how much is enough?