My new piece at truthout on Obama and defense spending...
Policy Report: Obama Should Learn Defense Budget Lessons from FrenchThursday 17 December 2009
by: Allen McDuffee, t r u t h o u t | Report
In an era when defense contractors monopolize
technical expertise and determine pricing while Congress protects
parochial interests, President Obama would do well to adopt lessons
from French Defense, according to a recent Washington, DC think tank
report.
The report ("Smart Defense Acquisition: Learning from French Procurement Reform") published by the Center for New American Security (CNAS)
and authored by CNAS nonresident senior fellow Ethan B. Kapstein,
suggests that the $110 billion military procurement budget - the single
largest discretionary item in the federal budget - undergo a reduction
in the same fashion the French did in the late 1980s and early '90s,
resulting in a 20 percent decrease in the procurement budget between
1990 and 1997.
Read the full report here.
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