When Obama was elected president I wondered if the mushrooming economic crisis would effect the massive military budget that seems to grow no matter how bad the economy gets.  My question is sorta answered….but we will see.

Hi-tech fighter aircraft, new warships and missile defense projects are all potential targets for big cuts in the US defense budget, as the American military faces a new era of limits under President Barack Obama.

With a mushrooming budget deficit of more than a trillion dollars, the new administration has signaled it hopes to scale back military spending partly through a planned reduction of troops in Iraq and by taking the axe to big ticket weapons programs.

A list of candidates for possible cutbacks drawn up by the Pentagon includes more Navy destroyers built by General Dynamics, fighter jets including Lockheed Martin and Boeing’s F-22 Raptors and carrier-based Super Hornets, a digital radio system for all the armed services and missile defense weaponry for Poland and the Czech Republic.

Gates has already singled out the F-22 Raptor fighters, which cost about 350 million dollars each, for potential cutbacks.

Military analysts have also questioned the need for more Navy aircraft carriers and a computer-linked network of Army vehicles, known as Future Combat Systems, which has faced criticism.

On the political left, Obama has already been accused of failing to rein in the vast Pentagon budget that represents nearly half of the world’s military spending.

“The Barack Obama administration is continuing the neo-conservative agenda of US military domination of the world — albeit with perhaps with a kinder-gentler face,” said Peter Phillips, a professor at Sonoma State University and director of Project Censored.

For decades, the military budget was been sacred and untouchable…maybe those days are coming to an end.