American Security At Rick : Military Buget Cuts

Heritage Foundation on American security needs.

America ‘at the edge of catastrophe’

"We are living at the edge of catastrophe," and we can only recover with a sound national security strategy, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich told a Heritage Foundation audience Monday.

Speaking to a full house in Heritage's Douglas and Sarah Allison Auditorium, Gingrich said American defense spending must anticipate future challenges and not focus simply on today's threats. The government must use its imagination to foresee potential attacks and "translate the imagination into public policy," he said.
» Watch the entire speech on MyHeritage.org.

The speech marked the end of Heritage's "Protect America Month," which drew attention to the need for a sustainable military policy that makes America safe, prosperous and free. This requires the capacity to act on behalf of America's global interests.

Heritage Foundation experts have for three years advocated a sound national defense policy, dubbed "Four Percent for Freedom." A responsible defense policy requires a regular defense budget of at least four percent of the gross domestic product.
» Join over 50,000 others in signing the "4 percent for Freedom" petition

"Ensuring a robust defense and a strong military should not be controversial," argues Heritage fellow Jim Talent. This commitment to maintain defense funding is "even more compelling now than it was when first proposed."

Yet even as the federal government throws hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars at bailouts, "stimulus" packages and nationalized health care, lawmakers are looking to make drastic cuts where spending is most necessary: defense.

Heritage President Ed Feulner argues that government's "spending spree and cutting defense don't add up." Increased domestic spending and slashed military spending cannot possibly fulfill America's long-term security needs and meet the challenges of the future.
-- Amanda Reinecker