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 ...
Great, I come here to debate ideas, not deal with people like yourself who don’t bring a coherent argument to the table. Add something to the dialog, or go away. You started the insults.
Sad really.
Defeating the forces of terrorism has nothing to do with how much money we spend(that we don’t have). Your logic is akin to having a “corvette” complex. My question about whether you’ve stopped beating your wife was in reference to your loaded statement that my position must mean that I am against supporting our troops, it’s an age old statement meant to illustrate biaed, loaded questions, that have a predetermined spin to it. Democrats like to debate in that manner, for example, I’m not for hate-crime laws, now you and your typical democrat would retort, why do you hate black people, even though my position on the subject has nothing to do with race, nor am I bigot, but it is good at silencing people and stifling debate. As far as your pecker goes, which isn’t far, that was in response to your attack on my intellect. Insult my intellect, and I’ll impugn your stalk. Care to try again???
I'll concede that orbital mechanics and rocket design can have a dual purpose. But my original statement was I think NASA has provided more in the technology/knowledge realm than the Pentagon. I think the scientist with glasses and pocket protectors were working on ways to get to the stars before the Generals decided it was also a good way to drop bombs on the Russkies. And I think chicks have been the primary driver of genetics and cultural human evolution, almost everything a man does can be traced back to his desire to impress girls and get laid.
This is one driver that's shared with many animals but not the primary driver that sets humans apart.
Women do play a significant role in selecting for some traits. Most people assume blond hair/blue eyes is driven by men choosing them but actually it originates from mothers preferring this in their babies. The proof is that many more babies have blond hair/blue eyes than adults. The color change to brown occurs after the children are more viable and don't need their mothers so much. This is hard to understand in modern times, that a mother would prefer blond children to their others, but up until very recently food was not reliable and many times mothers did have to choose favorites.
The selection of the blond/blue trait remaining in adulthood is primarily male driven but the initial trait was caused by the preference by women.
And the military has lots of bucks so I think the scientists market their knowledge to the military in a quest for funding, which drives the equation. Scientists want to put a man in orbit, scientists have no money, scientists go up to the Generals and say we need some money and here's what we can offer you, scientists get money, Generals get Titan missiles, scientists put a man in orbit. Everyone's happy. Rinse, repeat as desired.
Back to women and their significant roles, I remember hearing a comedian talking about guys and their expensive, flashy cars. Guys don't like to have a big, expensive, flashy cars, but women like big, flashy, expensive cars, so guys will go out and get flashy cars. I think you could go back in time to the era of caves and fire and discovering the wheel and find the same motivations.
Oh, I noticed...LOL...how could you miss. They like to attack anyone whose not lining up with their flaky thinking.
Very true, but the reason for this may surprise you: women are competing against other women. If it wasn't for the beauty queen competition going on they wouldn't care much what you drove. They want to make other women envious of them in an attempt to placate their own envy. Most importantly they don't want to make a dating choice that will get them laughed at by other women. Similarly, women go under the knife and have fake boobs inserted not to attract a higher class of man, but to compete against other women. They don't care that they feel fake to men because it isn't about men.
Truer words.......
“no one noticed that Code Toad is a defeatist liberal troll”
OH, shut up, you idiot. I guess suport of any amount of money for defense makes you, what, more patriotic than everyone else?? Questioning a defense bill is considered a “defeatist liberal troll”?? Throwing around such terms to try to support a bad argument is nothing but juvenile, so grow up.
“You are a defeatist troll.”
Well, I hope you don’t so much as question any other part of the budget least you be unpatriotic. I just know you would never question anything defense related least be a “leftist troll”.
The problem with this country isn’t people questioning anything, it is people such as yourself who believe as long as it is defense related then anything and everything is all right. You can kiss my veteran ass.
I’m sure you know nothing of inflation.
You don’t understand the cost of research & development(in terms of maintaining a strong military as per your orginal post).
You clearly aren’t accounting for the money spent on operations for Iraq & Afghanstan.
You believe in under paying people who put their lives on the line everyday for you.
You don’t know how to measure the budget in terms of GDP.
Now we might be able to have discussion on all the other pots the Government puts it’s hands into like Social Security, Medicare, Education, Welfare, etc etc etc. I was merely making the point on our Miltary budget. The Government is charged with our defense and with emerging threats like Iran, Russia, & China I don’t see a problem with 700 Billion. What I do have a problem with is the other 1.8 billion that gets passed around to other programs the FEDERAL government has no business being in.
Really, you ought to learn something about this before you spout off. Try reading an article by Jacques Gansler, one of the noted students of defense spending (and a critic, by the way) called “How the Pentagon Buys Fruitcake.” 90% of the “waste” is through government requirements for fairness and open competition-—when sole source can be much better (there are good studies, which I bet you could care less about, about the Sparrow vs. Sidewinder missile)-—than competitive bid. Just knowing the history of the Trident, when the government expected Electric Boat to “invest” $400 MILLION with no guarantee of anything past the first four boats (which would have been a massive loss) is ridiculous.
I'm sure no one was being forced at the end of a gun to invest $400 million and if they made such ludicrous demands as you said and all they heard back was the chirping of crickets, then I'm sure they would have re-evaluated their requirements. Why should market forces not be allowed to work??? Once again you could no sooner keep a CEO away from an Everest sized pile of cash than you could shoo away all the flies trying to land on a huge pile of manure. I'll bet you though, that had General Dynamics said go pound sand, that some other company would have stepped up and filled the void, and they knew that, so they built the submarines.
Please don't expect me to feel sorry for a company with annual revenues of $19.4 Biliion. Didn't they recently get a contract to convert 4 of these into Tomahawk missile submarines at a cost of $800 million a piece??? According to my math that's $3.2 Billion, doesn't make an investment of $400 million seem too bad at all. Wait I can barely type through the tears in my eyes over General Dynamics predicament.
Your attitude is one of the reasons excellent companies like Boeing won’t even go into defense work. Not worth being slimed.
The Boeing Co.'s campaign to win federal backing for a lucrative new military airplane contract was in trouble in October 2002. The head of the Office of Management and Budget had just told the Air Force and Congress that the acquisition plan -- which featured the most costly government lease in U.S. history -- was not urgent and would squander billions of dollars.
........
Under the contract, Boeing would produce 100 refueling tankers based on its 767-model airliner, a deal Dicks predicts would be expanded and eventually bring the giant weapons manufacturer $100 billion. That would make it one of the most expensive military programs this decade.
Leasing, rather than buying, is the key to the deal: The Air Force, under current budgeting, cannot afford to buy so many aircraft at once. Leasing would permit it to pay less up front, although it would ultimately pay as much as $5.7 billion more overall. And Boeing would be able to keep its 767 production line active despite a decrease in commercial orders for the plane. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and others have denounced the program as corporate welfare born in backroom dealing. Air Force Secretary James G. Roche has said it is a cost-effective way to modernize an aging tanker fleet.
“I don’t see a problem with 700 Billion”
In other words, defense is something you believe ANY amount is never too much. No one I know is against a budget capable of defending this nation from attack, but to say that amount needs to be tied to a percentage of GDP, and then to say I couldn’t possible understand that because I disagree with such a ridiculous statement, is absurd. Taking 5% of our GDP for defense is too much. The fraud, waste, and abuse of that money is seriously out of control. I am intimately involved with the military and see the waste every day. I find it astonishing that today we have people who believe such a large budget is not improper; so much for a fiscally conservative.
Let’s just say we disagree on the amount of money it takes to adequately defend this nation.
http://www.govexec.com/top200/02top/s3chart1.htm
Really, you ought to learn something about this before you spout off. Hmmm, that does sound familiar. Sucks to be hoisted by your own petard.
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