Peter Orszag, director of the Congressional Budget Office, will lead the Office of Management and Budget in the next administration, writes NBC’s Domenico Montanaro. Rob Nabors, an OMB veteran, will serve as Orszag’s deputy. Check their bios here.
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Since 2004, Lawrence Korb and others from Foreign Policy in Focus have issued studies showing how our national security, and that of the world, can be improved by removing illegal or unworkable weapons systems and wasteful spending from the Defense budget and spending (much less) money more wisely on diplomacy, non-proliferation, foreign aid and other methods of preventing international violence.
I don’t know if Secretary Gates read this year’s report, but he did speak out in favor of this approach — before writing a 2009 budget that carried on in “weapons” mode instead.
Another strong voice in favor is Barack Obama’s pick for White House Budget Director, Peter Orszag. When Mr. Orszag analyzed the latest defense budget, he separated out the types of spending involved so Congress can easily winnow what should be winnowed and fund what supports prevention and therefore world peace.
The report, entitled “A Unified Security Budget for the United States, Fiscal Year 2009,” was written by Miriam Pemberton, Lawrence Korb and a 25-member task force of experts. See the report in its entirety at http://www.fpif.org or an executive summary at http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/5548.