<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; ">Not sure what Roger would recommend in defense cuts, but lets start with closing the military academies. $325,000.00 per year, per student? Hell, lets just send the students to Harvard, Stanford, MIT, etc.<div>A better education AND it doesn't perpetuate a "military officer class". And how much of the "defense" budget is spent on NCAA activities at the academies? That's a great expenditure of defense dollars-NOT!</div><div><br></div><div>The country was never intended to have a large standing army as we do today. And for what? We can't even secure our own borders! A recent example of this is the incursion into the US by the Mexican Air Force! We can't stop the Mexican Air Force, why do we think we can stop border crossers or smugglers? </div><div><br></div><div>And no one has ever answered where was the so called "professional military" on 9/10 and 9/11? Asleep at the switch and what was the result? Was ANYONE at the Department of DEFENSE fired? NO!</div><div>All that happened is that we now have an internal security apparatus, The Department of Homeland Security. Well, if the DEFENSE department isn't responsible for DEFENSE, what are we paying for?</div><div><br></div><div>IF we "need" a large army to go off and fight in foreign countries (with the support and consent of CONGRESS and the PEOPLE), then a large foreign expeditionary force can be created, trained, and deployed.</div><div>Is it just a historical accident that BEFORE there was a Department of Defense, we actually used to WIN wars? The Department of Defense is a costly experiment who's time to depart is long past. We now have more military bureaucrats and contractors than we did at the end of WW2, when we had some 7 million men and women in uniform!</div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div>THATS a good place to start with government cut backs.</div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br><div><div>On Aug 8, 2011, at 11:52 AM, bookpeople of moscow wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><blockquote type="cite"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-size: medium; "><div bgcolor="#ffffff"><div><font face="Arial" size="2">what big spending programs?</font></div><div><font face="Arial" size="2"></font> </div><div><font face="Arial" size="2">the veterans dept is the second largest dept in the govt.</font></div><div><font face="Arial" size="2"></font> </div><div><font face="Arial" size="2">are you advocating cutting veterans benefits?</font></div><div><font face="Arial" size="2"></font> </div><div><font face="Arial" size="2">the defense dept is the largest govt dept.</font></div><div><font face="Arial" size="2"></font> </div><div><font face="Arial" size="2">what cuts in american defense are you demanding?</font></div><div><font face="Arial" size="2"></font> </div><div><font face="Arial" size="2">what are the big liberal spending programs? please give facts and figures.</font></div>=======================================================<br>List services made available by First Step Internet,<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><br>serving the communities of the Palouse since 1994. <br> <a href="http://www.fsr.net">http://www.fsr.net</a><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span> <br> <a href="mailto:Vision2020@moscow.com">mailto:Vision2020@moscow.com</a><br>=======================================================</div></span></blockquote></div><br></div></body></html>