National Security

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• Defense Cuts Necessary Step to Control Deficit

  Making Pentagon spending share the pain equally with other federal functions would seem a common-sense mechanism since defense consumes nearly 60 percent of the discretionary budget....

  
• Defense Savings Strengthen Our Economic Security

  Congress can help protect our nation’s economic security by pursuing a minimum of $50 to $100 billion in annual Pentagon budget savings...

  
• Our Take

  TCS in Foreign Policy: Pork Will Find a Way

  TCS's National Security program director weighs in on the past decade's budgetary buildup and earmark explosion. ...

  
• Pentagon contracting 101

  Department of Defense purchases more than $1 billion of goods and services every day, accounting for two-thirds of all government purchases...

  
• Reports & Data

  Spending Even Less, Spending Even Smarter

  Details nearly $700 billion in savings over the next ten years, including cuts to wasteful weapons systems. ...

  

Providing for the common defense is a government function enshrined in our constitution. But every defense dollar we spend beyond our needs “has a long-term weakening effect upon the nation and its security,” in the words of President Dwight D. Eisenhower. Defense spending accounts for the...More

largest portion of the federal discretionary budget and is packed with contracts for goods and services the military does not even need, let alone want. Congress could find hundreds of billions of dollars in savings by reforming Defense Department contracts, delaying or eliminating costly, problematic weapons systems, and right-sizing our force to handle 21st-century conflicts.

Transparency and accountability for spending decisions at all national security agencies is critical to the task of trimming the federal budget and the national debt. These agencies include the Departments of Defense, Homeland Security, and State, as well as the Department of Energy’s nuclear-weapons functions.

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