Bush Military Costs May Be $70 Billion Off
The Clinton Administration is attempting to determine whether the Administration of President George Bush underestimated projected military spending over the next three years by as much as $70 billion.
To help make the determination, Defense Secretary Les Aspin has established a panel of three well-known defense experts.
The panel will investigate and report its findings in March. It also will review projected long-term costs of weapons purchases, manpower levels and environmental cleanup.
If the Bush estimates were wrong, the Clinton Administration could be forced to cut military spending more severely than it had planned and could even find it impossible to fulfill its campaign pledge of reducing the Pentagon budget by $60 billion over the next five years.
The concern centers on two assumptions in Bush’s budget: that new management procedures would result in savings of $70 billion or more and that the cost of long-range weapons purchases will remain steady.
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