Gates Proposes Cuts in Big-Budget Defense Items

I hope this is an example of a perfect storm: global economic crisis + US bogged down in assymetric wars in Iraq and Afghanistan = common sense in defense priorities. My guess is that the big contractors will start screaming about job-loss (even though it's a well-documented reality that maintaining one defense job costs much more than a non-defense job of equal pay). These huge contractors get vast sums of government money for R&D and use government facilities free-of-charge. If companies did this in other industries they would be nationalized (and the argument that this would make them less efficient is ridiculous, since they already complete everything late and over-budget anyway). I hope Congress finally stands up to these huge defense interests (even though these companies were smart enough to place production of defense components in nearly each of their districts so as to make cutting projects nearly impossible). Can't believe I'm rooting for a Bush-appointee, but I'll say it, "Go Gates!"

You can read the WSJ story here.