Today six Congressmembers met to speak on the importance of defense spending and why it should not be targeted in the ongoing budget cut discussions.  The event, Defending Defense: Defense Spending and the Super Committee, was put on by The Foreign Policy Institute, The Heritage Foundation, and The American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research.  In concluding remarks Mackenzie Eaglen (of the Heritage Foundation) stressed the interconnectedness of economic strength and military strength, a theme woven during most of the speakers' remarks: our national security (i.e.

With time running out before a temporary federal funding measure expires on March 4^th, the House of Representatives last week passed H.R. 1, which would provide funding for federal agencies for the rest of the fiscal year, through September 2011-but it cuts deep into the international affairs and peacekeeping budget. 

Don Kraus, CEO of Citizens for Global Solutions, laid out the consequences of the House budget to IPS News: "The House FY 2011 funding bill would have a devastating impact on U.S. foreign affairs funding, and if adopted could be a serious setback to U.S support for the Millennial Development Goals (MGDs).  The legislation would cut funding for critical poverty fighting food aid programs by up to 50 percent, decimate support for refugees in Africa, Burma, Iraq and other places, and shrink funding for fighting AIDS, Malaria and Tuberculosis.  This legislation represents a serious retreat for U.S. poverty reduction efforts."

As published in the Huffington Post

Here's something you don't hear every day--a Secretary of Defense talking about reducing military spending. Yet Secretary Robert Gates has recently discussed the possibility of eliminating some weapons systems, command structures and other items which are no longer necessary for national security.

According to Miriam Pemberton, a principle author of a newly released report on our nation's security budget, Gates has proposed to "mount the most serious effort to restrain his own budget of any Defense Secretary since the post-Cold War period." Whether these plans are aspirational or will actually be achieved is another story.