Posted on 02/15/2011 1:33:47 PM PST by americanophile
Will this be the year that Congress takes after the defense budget, seeing it not as holy writ laid down by an unchallengeable priesthood but rather as a political document hammered out by competing bureaucracies, each with long-standing vested interests? It's a bubbling brew out there, the Tea Party Republicans keen to slash any and all federal programs, joined in a potential alliance of convenience with liberal Democrats seeking to kill big-ticket weapons slammed as pork-barrel waste or Cold War antiques.
The Obama administration's proposed defense budget for fiscal year 2012, rolled out Monday afternoon by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, makes for a gigantic target on this shooting range.
All told, it amounts to $702.8 billion, broken down as follows: $553 billion for the baseline discretionary Defense Department budget, $5 billion for a handful of mandatory programs, $117.8 billion for the costs of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and—a category usually omitted in these sorts of analyses but clearly laid out in the tables of the White House budget office—$27 billion for "defense-related" programs in other federal departments, nearly half of it for nuclear-weapons labs, reactors, and warhead maintenance in the Department of Energy.
The money to fight the wars is probably untouchable. First, as a result of the troop pullout from Iraq, it's a lot less money than the $160 billion funded last year. Second, as was the case last year, Gates is straightforward in itemizing these war-fighting costs ($80 billion for the troops and supplies, $10 billion for equipment to counter roadside bombs, $12 billion to repair and replace equipment, etc.). This is a refreshing contrast to his predecessor, Donald Rumsfeld, who offered no elaboration and stuffed several non-war-related programs into the account to make the baseline budget seem smaller.
(Excerpt) Read more at slate.com ...
Your point about will is why the carriers are essential and always will be.
&5% of the money spent by the Federal Government is UnConstitutional wealth transfer payments. Without that we could double the Defense budget and still have the worlds best economy.
75% of the money spent by the Federal Government is UnConstitutional wealth transfer payments. Without that we could double the Defense budget and still have the worlds best economy.
We do not need them until we really, really need them YESTERDAY. If we can wait until they are needed, then turn back the clock and calendar to meet the long-lead build time, we’ll be fine.
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