President Obama\u2019s proposed budget for 2012 calls for a 26 percent decrease in military spending. According to Bloomberg News<\/a>, the $117 billion in military spending would be the lowest expenditures for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2005. The Pentagon\u2019s request for fiscal 2011 is $159 billion.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s the largest year-to-year decrease in total war funding since\u201d the Afghan war began, Todd Harrison<\/a>, a defense budget analyst for the nonpartisan Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments<\/a> in Washington<\/a>, said in an e-mail. \u201c<\/p>\n

If you like big numbers, here are some others that can help put the new budget into perspective:<\/p>\n

\n
• From Sept. 2001 through Sept. 30, 2010, Congress has authorized $1.2 trillion to pay for military operations, base security embassy costs and other items.<\/li>\n
• For the first three months of fiscal year 2010, the Pentagon spent a monthly average of $4.3 billion in Afghanistan and $3.4 billion in Iraq.<\/li>\n
• In fiscal year 2008, the Pengaton averaged $10.9 billion a month for Iraq and $2.7 billion for Afghanistan.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

  What does the proposed cut mean? According to AlterNet, \u201cIt will force the Army and Marine Corps to reduce the number of troops on active duty<\/a> and eventually freeze military spending for the first time since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.\u201d<\/p>\n

  According to news reports, the cuts reflect an intention by the Obama administration to reduce the number of troops in Afghanistan. Of course, it falls far short of a declaration of a full withdrawal from Afghanistan, but, at minimum, it\u2019s a step in the right direction.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  President Obama\u2019s proposed budget for 2012 calls for a 26 percent decrease in military spending. According to Bloomberg News, the $117 billion in military<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":6912,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,265],"tags":[2094,857],"yoast_head":"\n