Defense Secretary Admits Wasting Taxpayer Money

In making a rare admission that a department of the federal government is squandering taxpayer money, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said on Saturday than Pentagon officials will seek to cut overhead costs.

"The Pentagon must hold down its spending and make choices that will anger "powerful people" in an era of economic strain, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said in a weekend speech in Kansas.

Increasing health care costs, a top-heavy uniformed and civilian management force, and big-ticket weapons systems are swelling the military's budget at an "unsustainable" rate, Gates said. In response, Gates said, he has ordered the Defense Department's military and civilian leaders to find savings of 2 to 3 percent -- more than $10 billion of the Pentagon's roughly $550 billion base budget -- and shift spending toward war-fighting costs."

Given the US military is thought to have a fixed presence in 135 countries around the world, there's no reason that we can't take Mr. Gates one step further and slash 50% of its budget in an effort to return it to its true roots of defending the United States from foreign aggression.

Putting America's military overseas in so many countries stirs up foreign distrust of the United States (who see the US military presence as unwanted intervention in their affairs), wastes taxpayer money, strays from the Constitutional mandate of using the military to protect our own borders and probably ends up inadvertently propping up more dictatorships overseas than it does in attaining its hoped-for goal of spreading freedom.