"Analysts have questioned why the Department of Defense should be treated as a sacred cow/ With a budget of $648 billion, the Pentagon should be able to find $43 billion of wasteful spending in order to meet the sequester target."

Yet more garbage from the ignorant Sandra Erwin...

Firstly, the DOD has NEVER been treated as a sacred cow. Even before sequestration, it had contributed $900 BILLION dollars in deficit reduction, having been subjected to several series of cuts before sequestration.

These included the massive program cancellations of 2009 and 2010 ($330 bn), New START, the Gates Efficiencies Initiative ($178 bn), and the BCA's first (pre-sequestration) tranche of defense spending cuts ($487 bn). All told, even before sequestration, the DOD had contributed $900 bn to deficit reduction since 2009 alone. And that is despite the DOD accounting for just 17.58% of the total federal budget.

NO other federal agency or program has so far contributed ANYTHING to deficit reduction.

The DOD is not being, and has NEVER been, treated as a "sacred cow". Any claim that the DOD is being treated as such are blatant lies, and the people spreading them are children of the Father of Lies himself.

Secondly, the entire FY2013 military budget (not all of it being the DOD"s budget) is $611 bn - and that's before sequestration. It's not $648 bn. Not even close.

Thirdly, the amount of cuts required in FY2013 alone - in its last 7 months - is $46 bn. In every successive FY through FY2022, $55 bn in cuts is required. There ISN'T that much waste in the defense budget. Not even close. (Note: crucial weapon programs and facilities are not "waste.")

Fourthly, sequestration will cut everything outside personnel accounts UNIFORMLY by 10%, regardless of whether it's wasteful or not, and whether it's important or not. Everything - whether beef jerky or the Long Range Strike Bomber program - will be cut equally, by 10%. It will also force the military to postpone maintenance and depot availability for dozens of ships and hundreds, if not thousands, of aircraft, as well as shutting down entire fighter wings, and to cut procurement quantities and lengthen acquisition schedules (thus losing economies of scale).

By doing so, sequestration will make the problem of waste in the defense budget MUCH WORSE.

If those who decry DOD waste were REALLY concerned about it, they would be leading the campaign to CANCEL sequestration. But they don't. All they want is to see the military gutted.

Sequestration almost looks like a deliberate ploy by defense gutters to artificially create a lot of waste in the defense budget, through the sequester's haphazard, inefficient method of cutting, to have a pretext for more defense cuts.

Shame on Ms Erwin for lying so blatantly.

Excellent article. An honest assessment of Pentagon failures, and the very dismal and toxic leadership by Panetta. The first letter is a classic example of big spenders who pretend they have cut things. All the "cuts" so far were to dreamy plans by the Pentagon for endless growth. The sequester merely requires rolling back spending to 2007 levels, and was enacted back in 2011. Even 2007 spending is 50% higher than 2002. 

And excellent example is military compensation, which has risen 90% the past decade. The Pentagon's on-line pay calculator shows a married E-1 starts at over $40,000 a year! LTCs make twice as much as Americans with Master's Degrees! Yet despite sequestration, basic pay went up over 3% each of the past two years, while fed civilian salaries were frozen. Even today, as our military is forcing troops out, no General is calling for a pay freeze, and still want a 1% raise next year!

The comment about E1 pay.  An E1 starts at a little over 18,000 a year.  Not 40,000.  You are looking at the max pay adding in housing entitlements and BAS when most junior Soldier live in the barracks and eat in the dining facility.  This means they cannot get these entitlements.  I have lost several friends and peers who were gave there life for the Army Pay that you say is to much.  I went and saw my buddy in the hospital right after he had his butt cheek half blown off and face peppered with shrapnel go get patched up and then come right back to the battlefield.  I have seen Soldiers cry as they carry their fellow Soldiers body to the plane to go back home.  I have seen families torn apart by the separation of Soldiers from thier family.  This does not even touch the surface of what Soldiers put on the line everyday for thier Country.  To comment that they are overpaid and compare it to a job in the average civlian community to base this on is just ridiculous.  I see so much waste by the goverment and you will never convince me that a Soldiers pay is part of that waste.  Get some comensense bean counters out and I truly believe we can save a lot of money without touching the pay of Soldiers that you feel are being paid to much.  I could go on discuss what can be cut but the fact is most people seem more concerned with blaming rather than really taking a close look at fixing the problem.