Top military chiefs: Cut pay and benefits

[Lasher]

8. The Pentagon's Biggest Overrun: Way Too Many Generals

Thursday, 05 January 2012 04:06
By Dina Rasor, Truthout | Solutions

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta will lay out a plan today to cut the Pentagon's budget as required by the White House and the Congress. He isn't happy about it and has complained bitterly in the media about hollowing out the military, and he has had help from the top generals in the Department of Defense (DoD) to give him backup.

However, studies that I started years ago show that there are way too many generals for troops, planes and ships and these generals also make sure that their turf and positions are protected. They are costing us far more than their high salaries, retirements and perks; they are using their positions to protect the status quo in the military.

Ironically, they are fighting budget cuts that would take them, in constant dollars, back to 2007 levels of spending. To put that in historic perspective, the DoD budget has nearly doubled since 9/11.

So, how many military brass do we have compared to past years? We have the most ever since World War II. In 1982, when I was running the Project on Military Procurement, one of my sources suggested to me that I do research on how many top officers we had for our troops, planes and ships. My report showed a steady increase since World War II, especially since the number of planes and ships were decreasing due to cost, while the number of generals were increasing. Over the years, my former organization, now known as the Project on Government Oversight (POGO) (for full disclosure, I am on POGO's board of directors and serve as treasurer), has redone the report several times, and the brass continues to grow as we get fewer and fewer weapons. The biggest growth was with three- and four-star generals, which POGO has dubbed "star creep." POGO's Ben Freeman recently testified to the Congress in September on how bad the problem had gotten.

http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/5920:the-pentagons-biggest-overrun-way-too-many-generals