From PRI, Public Radio International and KCRW Santa Monica, this is To the Point.

Reshaping the Pentagon for a dangerous new world.

Hello again, I'm Warren Al-Nian, this is To the Poet from Public Radio International,

a daily look of the issues Americans care about most.

Bailouts, infrastructure, and financial stimulus will require big money during a deepening recession.

Barack Obama also needs to worry about defense. The U.S. spends almost as much on defense as the rest of the world combined, but it is stretched too thin to cover both Iraq and Afghanistan.

Will future threats be from conventional warfare or counterinsurgency?

Will they require more troops or more high-tech equipment for smaller forces?

We'll look at some of the toughest questions the next president will have to answer.

On reporter's notebook later on, consumer prices are on the decline.

Is that good news or bad? First, here's the news.

Support for To the Point comes from subscribers of KCRW Santa Monica and from the Public Radio International Program Fund, whose contributors include the Ford Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, and the Rockefeller Foundation,

and its campaign for American workers. More at rockfound.org. Hello again, Warren-Aulay, back with To the Point. The New York Times says the Pentagon spends 85 percent more than it did eight years ago,

but U.S. forces are stretched almost to the breaking point. In the midst of recession, with new threats on

the horizon, will Barack Obama have to increase strength and readiness? At the same time, he

decreases spending. We'll hear some radically different views today. On reporter's notebook,

consumer prices dropped by a record amount in October. Is that good news? Or a warning of

possible deflation? First, this news update. The CEOs of the big three were back on Capitol Hill today. One congressman tried to get Rick Wagner of General Motors to explain the worst case scenario. The analysis that we've done is based on an assumption that the U.S. market continues at about the current rate, which is a weak level. We don't assume a lot of recovery. We hope it won't get worse. On that basis, we would, with the amount of funding that proportionally would presumably be allocated to us, we think we have a good shot to make it through next year. Jim Puzignara is Taff Rider for the Washington, D.C. Bureau of the Los Angeles Times, and Jim, good to have you on our program.

Hi, thanks for having me.

He started out. He was asked about the worst-case scenario, seemed to be giving the best-case scenario, might make it through the next year if they get the $25 billion.

Yeah, there's a lot of skepticism today, as there was yesterday in a hearing in the Senate, that these companies have turned themselves around, and that this $25 billion in emergency loans that they're asking for won't just be the first of many investments that the government will have to make to keep them afloat.

Some of the Congressmen tried to pin the

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