Buying new toys or new soldiers - Can US afford both?

We talked twice before about the Pentagon's projected budget, here and here.
Now comes news that Congressional Democrats are concerned about paying for personnel increases, especially if they have to cut modernization and procurement to do so.

Democrats in Congress are beginning to push back against plans to increase the size of the Army and Marine Corps, signaling that they will protect the sophisticated weapons systems that constituents and contractors value in the upcoming debate over resources.
The call for smaller personnel numbers by senior Defense appropriators and authorizers comes at a time when the Defense budget faces a crisis, with rising obligations to pay for new weapons systems colliding with the mounting cost of maintaining an all-volunteer force.
The tension between funding people or weapons programs feeds into the larger defense community discussion over whether to invest limited resources in preparing for equipment-centric conventional conflicts or the counterinsurgency wars that the U.S. military is now fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.

By: Brant