iOS app Android app More  Lawrence Korb  Lawrence Korb   Robert
Gates' Budget Dance  Posted: 03/16/11 03:33 PM ET    Three years
later, after making what he claimed were $300 billion in program
reductions and $178 billion in efficiencies savings, Gates
argued that if Congress does not appropriate at least $540
billion for FY 2011 the results would be "catastrophic" and that
he needed at least $553 billion for FY 2012.  Moreover, because
the budget deficit for FY 2011 was now projected to be $1.6
trillion, and since defense consumes more than half of the
discretionary budget and about 20 percent of the overall budget,
groups like President Obama's deficit commission and Congressman
Barney Frank's Sustainable Defense Task Force were saying that
significant defense cuts had to be part of the solution to deal
with the exploding federal deficit. Gates also called these
efforts catastrophic and claimed they are exercises in math and
had no strategic component.  What happened? Why is the base
defense budget higher t