This is an echo of a post by Jen DiMascio, which is here: http://t.co/rQFFUcMi
Reform Military Health Care Benefits and Compensation:
| Sustainable Defense Task Force ($960 billion over 10 yrs) | Savings (in billions) | Back in Black – Sen. Tom Coburn’s Plan ($1.006 trillion over 10 yrs) | Center for American Progress ($400 billion over 5 yrs) | A Strategy of Restraint – CATO Institute ($1.111 trillion over 10 yrs) | Simpson-Bowles Commission ($100.1 billion in 2015) | Notes | ||||
| Gradually phase in compensation reforms – for example, include tax advantages and housing and subsistence allowances the calculations when planning pay raises, as recommended by the Quadrennial review of Military Compensation | 55 | Reform the military pay system as the Quadrennial Review of Military Compensation recommends | 14 | Reform the calculation of military compensation and restructure health care benefits (This proposal concurs with the SDTF options.) | 115 | |||||
| Reform military retirees who are earning full-time salaries on top of their full military pensions from opting for Tri-Care when they can get health coverage through their employer along the lines suggested by the Quadrennial Review of Military Compensation. | 60 | Working-age military retirees enrolled in TRICARE would pay greater monthly fees, comparable to private sector health plans. The expenses for a single retiree would be approximately $2000 per year and $3500 for a family | 115 | Restore Tricare costs to more sustainable levels by reinstituting a fair cost-sharing balance between military retirees and taxpayers and implementing a number of provisions to reduce overutilization and double-coverage. | 42 | Slightly increase premiums and co-payments for TRICARE along the guidelines set by Sec. Gates. | 6 | |||
| Increase Cost Sharing for Pharmaceuticals Under TRICARE | 26 | |||||||||
| Introduce Minimum Out-of-Pocket Requirements Under TRICARE for Life | 43 |
Limit Procurement and R&D:
| Sustainable Defense Task Force ($960 billion over 10 yrs) | Savings (in billions) | Back in Black – Sen. Tom Coburn’s Plan ($1.006 trillion over 10 yrs) | Center for American Progress ($400 billion over 5 yrs) | A Strategy of Restraint – CATO Institute ($1.111 trillion over 10 yrs) | Simpson-Bowles Commission ($100.1 billion in 2015) | Notes | ||||
| Replace planned [Air Force] procurement of F-35s with advanced versions of the F-16 and F-15E | 47.9 | Keep Air Force F-35s but negotiate a multi-year procurement | 7 | Substitute F-16 and F/A-18Es for half of the Air Force and Navy’s planned buys of F-35 fighter aircraft | 2.3 | Other groups, such as the National Security Network, concurred with the Simpson-Bowles Commission to reduce procurement of these costly programs and use a system to better identify inefficient weapons systems. | ||||
| Cancel the Navy and Marine Corps buy of F-35 joint Strike Fighters | 9.85 | Navy and Marine Corps: Cancel the Joint Strike Fighter and Replace with F/A-18 Super Hornet | 18 | Cut procurement of the Navy and Marine F-35 Joint Strike Fighter variants | 16 | Cancel the Marine Corps’ F-35 procurement | 3.9 | |||
| End procurement of MV-22 Osprey and field alternatives. (Btw 10 and 12 bil in savings) | 11 | End purchases of the V-22 at 288 aircraft instead of the planned 458 | 6 | Cancel the V-22 Osprey program | 9.2 | Terminate the V-22 Osprey | 15 | End purchases of the V-22 at 288 aircraft instead of the planned 458, and fill the gap with MH-60 helicopters | 1.1 | |
| Refurbish AAV7A1s instead of keep the USMC expeditionary fighting vehichle program | 8.5 | Cancel the Assault Amphibious Vehicle 7A | 11 | Cancel the expeditionary fighting vehicle | 0.65 | |||||
| Reducing base budget spending on R&D by $5 billion annually | 50 | Cut ten percent of its Research and Development budget | 79 | Cut $10 billion annually from the RDT&E | 40 | The Pentagon should reduce total RDT&E spending by an additional ten percent annually | 73 | Cut ten percent of its Research and Development budget; | 7 | |
| Reduce US Navy battle fleet from current 286 ships to 230 (made up of 9 aircraft carriers, 7 SSBNs, 4 guided missile subs, 37 attack subs, 85 surface combat ships, 25 littoral combat ships, 27 amphibious combat ships, 36 logistics/ support ships) | 126.6 | Reduce Aircraft Carriers From 11 to 10, Navy Air Wings from 10 to 9 | 7 | Cancel procurement of the CVN-80 aircraft carrier and retire two existing carrier battle groups and associated air wings. Limit procurement of the Virginia-class submarine and DDG-51 destroyer to one per year; limit procurement of the littoral combat ship to two vessels per year | 28 | Reduce the navy’s fleet to 40 tactical subs by 2020 and 6 SSBNs. Keep the number of destroyers at 62, only refurbish littoral ships instead of building new ones, and reduce the navy to 8 carriers and 7 naval air wings. Lastly cancel the maritime prepositioning force | 130 | Cancel the maritime prepositioning force | 2.7 | |
| Terminate other weapon, information or technology systems that have cost overruns, duplications, or are "not a priority at this time" | 35.5 | Reduce procurement by 15% and set up a BRAC like system to eliminate inefficient weapons systems | 20 | |||||||
| Reduce Spending for "Other Procurement" | 52 | Reduce Spending for "Other Procurement" | 8.5 |
Personnel Reductions:
| Sustainable Defense Task Force ($960 billion over 10 yrs) | Savings (in billions) | Back in Black – Sen. Tom Coburn’s Plan ($1.006 trillion over 10 yrs) | Center for American Progress ($400 billion over 5 yrs) | A Strategy of Restraint – CATO Institute ($1.111 trillion over 10 yrs) | Simpson-Bowles Commission ($100.1 billion in 2015) | Notes | ||||
| Roll back the active component Army from 45 to 42 maneuver brigades and reduce its end strength from 547,400 to 482,400 as well as reduce military recruiting expenditures | 152 | Return the Army to 482,400 soldiers on active duty and slightly reduce the number of reservists. | 92 | Roll back 74,200 Army positions | 39 | Cut active-duty Army to approximately 360,000 personnel | 220 | Since the start of the Afghanistan War, the Army has added 89,400 personnel. The pre-war level was 480,000. | ||
| Roll back USMC end-strength to 175,000. | Roll back 27,000 Marine Corps positions | &nbps; | Cut the size of the Corps by nearly 30 percent, from 202,000 to approximately 145,000. (By about 3.5 percent a year) | 67 | Since the start of the Afghanistan War, the Marine Corps has added 29,100 personnel. The pre-war level was 173,000. | |||||
| Reduce troops in Europe and Asia, cut end strength by one third (50,000) | 80 | Reduce Military Personnel Overseas in Europe and Asia by one third. | 69.5 | Reduce active-duty troops in Europe and Asia by one-third | 43 | Reduce active-duty troops in Europe and Asia by one-third | 8.5 | The U.S. keeps 150,000 personnel in Europe and Asia | ||
| Reduce the Civilian Workforce by Five Percent Beginning in 2014 | 22.5 | And a corresponding number of civilian positions. | Reduce the civilian payroll by roughly 30 percent over a ten-year period | 105 | ||||||
| Reduce contractor staff augmentees by 20 percent (instead of 10 percent as Sec. Gates proposed) | 37.8 | Reduce contractor staff augmentees by 20 percent (instead of 10 percent as Sec. Gates proposed) | 5.4 | |||||||
| Replace about 88,000 military personnel who perform commercial-type activities with civilian personnel in FY2013 | 53 | Replace about 88,000 military personnel who perform commercial-type activities with civilian personnel in FY2013 | 5.4 | |||||||
| Reduce the number of expeditionary strike groups to six | 9 |
Other Savings:
| Sustainable Defense Task Force ($960 billion over 10 yrs) | Savings (in billions) | Back in Black – Sen. Tom Coburn’s Plan ($1.006 trillion over 10 yrs) | Center for American Progress ($400 billion over 5 yrs) | A Strategy of Restraint – CATO Institute ($1.111 trillion over 10 yrs) | Simpson-Bowles Commission ($100.1 billion in 2015) | Notes | ||||
| Selectively curtail missile defense & space spending | 55 | Terminate the Medium Extended Air Defense System (MEADS) Program | 13 | Refocus investment in missile defense programs away from procurement and towards R&D; cancel components with excessive cost overruns, such as the airborne-laser program. | 60 | |||||
| Adopt Gates’ Efficiency recommendations and redirect to deficit reduction | 100 | Redirect DOD’s planned efficiency savings to reduce the baseline defense budget | 133 | Adopt Gates’s Efficiency recommendations and redirect to deficit reduction | 28 | |||||
| Improve efficiency of military depots, commissaries and exchanges | 13 | Consolidate commissaries and exchanges | 9.1 | Reform the DoD Maintenance and Supply Systems | 13 | Reform the DoD Maintenance and Retail Systems | 2.2 | |||
| Reduce expenditures on Command, Support and Infrastructure | 100 | Reduce expenditures on Command, Support and Infrastructure | 100 | |||||||
| Keep Intelligence Spending Constant | 26 | |||||||||
| Freeze Federal Salaries for DoD Employees | 15.5 | Freeze all compensation for DoD civilian employees, and non-combat military pay for 3 years | 14.5 | Freeze all compensation for DoD civilian employees for three years would total in 15.5 | ||||||
| Audit the Pentagon: Aims to make the Pentagon more accountable | No Savings Estimates | Audit the Pentagon: Claims savings will come due to better financial management | 25 | Improve DoD financial management and audit readiness. |