Rethinking our Defense Budget: Achieving National Security through Sustainable Spending (Part 1)
Channel: HouseResourceOrg
Date: 2011-01-11

Rethinking our Defense Budget: Achieving National Security through Sustainable Spending (Part 1) - House Oversight Committee - 2010-07-20 - House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. On Tuesday, July 20, 2010, at 10 a.m. in 2154 Rayburn House Office Building, the Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs held a hearing entitled, "Rethinking our Defense Budget: Achieving National Security through Sustainable Spending." This hearing continued the Subcommittee's oversight of defense spending by examining recent scholarship and policy research on defense budget reform, including the conclusions and recommendations made in a recent report by the Sustainable Defense Task Force, Debt, Deficits, & Defense: A Way Forward, which presents a series of recommendations to reduce the budget of the Department of Defense by 60 billion by 2020. Witnesses offered perspectives on the Department of Defense's plan to cut military spending in the context of national security priorities and the current economic environment. The Department of Defense's budget has accounted for nearly 65 percent of the increase in federal discretionary spending since 2001. Citing the role of defense spending in the overall economic health of the United States, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates recently called for reductions in defense spending by eliminating wasteful spending and unnecessary weapons systems, and reducing overhead costs at the Pentagon. Video provided by the U.S. House of Representatives.