Budget Shift

There's quite a shakeup in the 2006 Department of Defense budget.

The Pentagon on Monday unveiled its 419.3 billion dollar 2006 budget, which cuts planned spending on expensive military hardware in favor of badly needed ground forces, US defense officials said.

An estimated 48 billion dollars will go to restructure the army over seven years, increasing the number of combat brigades by 30 percent, they said.

"It isn't the size of the force that was wrong, it's the shape of the force and the capability of the force," US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told reporters.

Two infantry marine battalions, 1,200 more special operations forces and other units also will be added under the plan.

If approved, the proposal would represent a 4.8 percent increase in military spending over the Defense Department's 400.1 billion dollar budget in [sentence unfinished][.]

I think this is a good idea. Programs like ballistic missile defense are important, but somewhat inappropriate when one evaluates the needs of the military and the nation. We're currently fighting a protracted ground war against a low-tech opposition force; you don't need so much ballistic missile defense, at least not for the time being.

This is precisely why it's necessary to cut the optional Hubble Space Telescope repairs from the national budget in favor of manned space flight. Deep space science isn't accomplishing what the country needs it to accomplish (manned space flight and space commerce), and ballistic missile defense isn't directly accomplishing what the Defense sector needs to accomplish (boots on the ground and direct support for boots on the ground).