The military could be run more efficiently if the Pentagon operated like a business, nationally syndicated radio talk show host Lars Larson told
NewsmaxTV on Monday.
"The Pentagon does not run like a business right now," Larson told "Midpoint" host Ed Berliner. "It's not capable of being audited the way that we would audit a lot of other agencies."
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The problem is that government officials can move only about three-quarters of 1 percent of the Pentagon budget, as "everything else is specified as to where that money will be spent within the budget."
"Imagine trying to improve the outcomes of a corporation if out of the entire budget, 99.25 percent of it cannot be changed, Larson said. "It's all written down in stone and only three-quarters of 1 percent can be changed."
Meanwhile, "weapons systems are purchased because of political decisions made on Capitol Hill that benefit the home districts of a lot of members of Congress," said Larson. "There are weapons systems that in many cases the Pentagon says it doesn't want, doesn't need, or can't use, or weapons systems that flat don't work."
For the Pentagon to be capable of protecting U.S. security, "you need something that's fast and nimble and where the weapons and the systems that we buy for the people at the Pentagon and for men and women in uniform are ones that actually work and do the jobs they need them to do."
Also in the segment, Larson discussed the latest news concerning Russian President Vladimir Putin, saying that U.S. Ambassador Samantha Power sounded "a whole lot more forceful" at the United Nations with her comments on downed Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 than President Barack Obama has sounded.
"Russia put the weapons in the hands of these people," said Larson. "It now appears that the missile was either fired from Russian territory, or if we accept the president's version of things, the Russian-made and -supplied missile was fired from the Ukraine and then that missile system was apparently withdrawn back across the border.
So, Russia's got blood on its hands in this case, and what does the president do? [He says] well, we really, really want to get our investigators on this scene as quickly as we can and Putin won't facilitate that."
The situation has gotten this far, said Larson, because Obama promised Putin more flexibility, and then showed weakness in situations such as in Syria.
"Now some of Putin's thugs have apparently used Putin's weapons to shoot down a jetliner and take the lives of 298 people, and all the president could say is, 'could you please let our investigators into the crash scene?' The president needs to be a whole lot more forceful than he's being right now."
Larson, on Monday's program, also took issue with the trend of young adults remaining at home with their parents rather than moving out.
"My wife and I know friends who have their 30-year-old kids still living at home, and it's a very nice lifestyle for the kids," he said. "What you have is millennials who are now encouraged by government policy. Obamacare says stay on mom and dad's insurance until you're 26, and there doesn't seem to be any burning desire in a lot of these millennials to get out and start making it happen for themselves."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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