Defense budget: pay now or pay later?

• Position: Washington Pulse - Brief Article

The question that keeps defense insiders buzzing around these days is how much of the nation's ballooning deficit realistically can be trimmed even as Pentagon's budgets continue to rise. Although the Pentagon has been under pressure for decades to slash unneeded big-ticket programs that are perceived as Cold-War relics, even deficit hawks warn that it may be irresponsible to cut weapon systems indiscriminately, just for the sake of reducing the federal deficit.

"I think President Bush's words are sincere, that he wants to reduce the budget. But I don't think his policies are yet consistent with those words," says Michael E. O'Hanlon, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution...