News Release

Left-Right Alliance on Cutting Military Budget

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MarketWatch is reporting: “Illinois Democrat Rep. Jan Schakowsky, who is a member of the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, on Tuesday offered up her own proposals for budget cutting that relies on defense spending cuts and corporate and estate tax hikes.”

CARL CONETTA
Conetta is co-director of the Project on Defense Alternatives at the Commonwealth Institute. He said today: “Earlier this year the president established a bipartisan National Commission for Fiscal Responsibility and Reform and asked it to recommend a plan for bringing the federal deficit into primary balance in 2015. …

“The defense budget has been responsible for more than 60 percent of discretionary budget growth since 2001 and almost a quarter of the growth in total federal spending. The rise in Pentagon spending since 1998 has been without precedent in all the years since the Korean War. …

“In March of 2010 the Sustainable Defense Task Force was formed in response to a request from Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), working in cooperation with Rep. Walter B. Jones (R-N.C.), Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) and Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), to explore possible military budget contributions to deficit reduction efforts that would not compromise the essential security of the United States. The Task Force reported back with nineteen options that in total would save nearly $1 trillion over ten years. For the year 2015 the savings would be $111 billion.”

For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167