Proposed Pentagon budget cuts would shrink Army, retire aircraft
Though both Democrats and Republicans have warned of the danger of deep cuts in defense, neither party has been able to spare the Pentagon budget from sharp declines as Congress grapples with pressure to reduce federal spending.
The Army was already scheduled to shrink to 490,000 troops by 2015, but with the Pentagon still facing years of reductions in planned future spending, the administration opted to cut manpower further to protect major weapons acquisition programs, notably the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, the most expensive program in Pentagon history.
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But Gordon Adams, a defense budget expert at American University and a former official with the Office of Management and Budget, said the same budget pressures that have driven down the defense budget made it unlikely that Congress would approve $115 billion in additional military spending.
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