Should We Change How We Budget For War?

Michael Pannone, right, teaches firearms and tactics to U.S. Army paratroopers assigned to the 82nd Airborne Division's 1st Brigade Combat Team on Fort Bragg, N.C., March 23, 2011. Pannone is a retired U.S. Army Special Forces soldier who teaches weapons and tactics skills. U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Michael J. MacLeod

The $1 Million Soldier: What's Wrong With How We Budget War -- CNN

The two-week-old military action in Libya has prompted a frenzy of headlines and sound bites about the operation's cost.

Can the United States afford it?

The short answer is "yes." The defense budget exceeds $500 billion a year, so the Pentagon has money on hand to pay for Libya.

But that's not the whole story. The recent events in Libya have opened up a long-standing and important debate about how we pay for our wars and military endeavors around the world.

The crux of the problem is that in recent years, Congress has paid for wars through emergency supplemental bills. At the same time, other defense costs were allowed to spin out of control.

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My Comment: I am skeptical that there can be savings in the defense budget by shifting how it is funded .... i.e. funding the wars not by a s supplemental budget but as a part of the defense budget itself. The bottom line is that wars .... today .... are very expensive endeavors. And number crunching and shifting of monies from one part of the budget to another part will not bring the savings that they hope for.