Posted on 12/12/2007 3:11:34 PM PST by SmithL
WASHINGTON, (AP) -- The House passed a defense policy bill on Wednesday that would authorize $696 billion in military programs, including $189 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The measure, which covers the budget year that began Oct. 1, does not send money to the Pentagon. But it is considered a crucial policy measure because it guides companion spending legislation and dictates the acquisition and management of weapons programs.
The Senate intended to follow suit this week and send the bill to President Bush, who is expected to sign it. The House vote was 370-49.
"It's good for our troops, good for our families," said Rep. Ike Skelton, D-Mo., chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, which wrote the bill. "It will help improve readiness for our armed forces and bring new oversight to the Department of Defense in areas where oversight was sorely needed in the past."
The legislation includes a 3.5 percent pay raise authorized for uniformed service personnel and a guarantee that combat veterans receive swift health evaluations. It also would block fee increases proposed as part of the military's Tricare health care system.
The bill has several provisions intended to increase the oversight of contractors and the rebuilding of Iraq and Afghanistan. More specifically, it would require that private security contractors working in a war zone comply with military regulations and orders issued by commanders.
It would establish an auditing system to oversee reconstruction contracts in Afghanistan that would be modeled after the special watchdog for Iraq reconstruction.
Final action on the bill comes as Democrats struggle for a way to pay for combat operations overseas without appearing to support Bush's policies in Iraq.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
Then you look at this thread and see some of the same BS...just from a different angle.
Wrong. Fraud and waste is far, far greater in non-defense programs. I think most audits have shown this.
Sorry for not clarifying that. If it's paid for by a U.S. Treasury check, it's a good bet that there's rampant fraud. Makes Enron look like a bunch of pikers.
“We are at war, are you forgetting about this simple fact?”
No,we are not at war. We are fighting a civil war for Iraq. They should be fighting their own civil war. Where is it written that we owe the Iraqi people a country?
Yes, as a nation we are borrowing and borrowing and borrowing and spending ourselves into oblivion, but that's a WIN. Hooray. Kind of like cutting your arm off with a chainsaw to remove a little sticker from your pinky. Success! You got that sticker out, although you're going to bleed to death in short order. Something of a Pyrrhic victory.
God bless our brave troops and President Bush.
Playing class warfare?! You lose again. The military spending have helped a lot in the economic boom we have experienced in the last 4 years and millions of Americans benefited from it.
Look at the DU troll post # 64. Yep, no one noticed that Code Toad is a defeatist liberal troll, he is too smart to be noticed (extreme sarcasm).
Boy is that an effective argument. You lose. See I said it again.
NASA and defense spending are closely related. Despite appearances the moon shots were military in nature. NASA is currently testing scramjets but this type of aircraft will first be used to deliver bombs. NASA has a more socially acceptable goal than killing people but otherwise NASA is largely the same thing as military research.
So by your basic way of thinking, we have to lose a war before America would be justified in fighting back. Not all that many Americans were killed at Pearl Harbor either.
True to a point, but I can't think of too many defense aspects to Voyager 1/2, the Viking missions, Pioneer, Pioneer Venus, Galileo, Mars Global Surveyor, Pathfinder, etc.......
Have you stopped beating your wife yet????
Your apology is accepted.
There is little technology difference between the solar system explorers and military spy satellites or how they got up there. Since the Stone Age the military has been the primary driver behind “cutting edge/bleeding” technology. And war has been the primary driver of genetic and cultural human evolution. It’s why humans are the most genetically developed animal on Earth despite the late start. Knowing that the need for large amounts of military spending should be evident. World peace is a hippie pipe dream. Human means war maker.
Ok here it is, go pound sand.
You’re not nearly as clever as you have come to imagine.
I’m not against defense spending. But to think that we can go on indefinitely spending like a bunch of drunken sailors without it being detrimental to the country is a little nuts in my opinion. At some point our country will fall apart.
And I’ve heard your lacking in equipment. We all have our shortcomings though. Try not to take it too hard, work on your technique.
You’re really not all that good at the personal insult business.
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