White House threatens to veto House defense spending bill

Inside Defense ^ | June 24, 2024 at 3:50 PM | Tony Bertuca

[Psalm 73]

President Biden would veto the GOP-led House's version of the fiscal year 2025 defense appropriations bill if it were to pass in its current form, according to a new statement of administration policy from the White House Office of Management and Budget.

The administration opposes all the House GOP’s appropriations bills on the grounds that they make steep cuts in non-defense spending and eliminate various initiatives related to climate change mitigation, abortion services and diversity, according to OMB.

The White House opposes the defense spending bill, which honors the $895 billion cap mandated by the Fiscal Responsibility Act, for numerous other reasons, including the bill’s shipbuilding account, which is $761 million less that the FY-25 request and eliminates two ship procurements.

The bill also forgoes the inclusion of $300 million for the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, something the administration also opposes, though GOP lawmakers have noted that tens of billions in supplemental spending was approved for Ukraine earlier this year.

The administration also opposes the bill’s 20% pay increase for junior enlisted servicemembers, with OMB noting that if the FY-25 budget request is enacted, servicemembers “will have received a 15 percent basic pay increase in just three years.”

The bill would also prohibit funding for a pier in Gaza that has been constructed by the U.S. military to deliver humanitarian aid but has also experienced challenges from severe weather and aid interceptions.

[Psalm 73]

Will we even survive long enough for the adults to get back in charge of things?

[PIF]

including the bill’s shipbuilding account, which is $761 million less that the FY-25 request and eliminates two ship procurements.

—
Always good to cut ship building when China already has 225 times US shipbuilding capacity. We wouldn’t want to make the Chiese PLAN nervous and force them to step up building ships, would we?

[Gen.Blather]

“Will we even survive long enough for the adults to get back in charge of things?”

The things you are talking about could be modeled as jelly. You could model the “adults” as hands with fingers. The adults will grab as much jelly as they can. Once the jelly is lifted the adults are in charge. But due to the nature of politics, there will always be some jelly that falls back. There are lots of reasons for this. The education system doesn’t sufficiently or accurately educate. Some of the jelly is political pandering which has been going probably since before there was language. Some of the lack of adulthood isn’t lacking adults, it’s adults from other cultures who quite literally live inside different reality. There are lots of other reasons. But suffice it to say there will never be enough adults, spread widely enough to capture all of the jelly at the same time. The most we might do is grab the most strategic and influential lumps of jelly and hold those. The problem with that is, once the adults are in charge they argue about which lump of jelly is the most important and strategic to grab, as they can’t grab it all. They fall to fighting amongst themselves and then lose power once again. It’s a cycle that repeats. An example might be, if you could hold only one, is it most important to stop legalization of drugs or end abortion?

[PIF]

The bill would also prohibit funding for a pier in Gaza that has been constructed by the U.S. military to deliver humanitarian aid but has also experienced challenges from severe weather and aid interceptions.

—
Amid extremely poor design and the huge failure to even build a rudimentary breakwater, leaving the pier open to the weather and destruction by he first storm that comes along.

[Bernard]

Joebone will probably propose that we buy navy ships directly from China, with the instructions in Chinese. (translated to Spanish upon request).

[circlecity]

A trillion dollars more debt every 90 days and the left won’t even slow the increases in spending.

[Redleg Duke]

What do you mean “Poor Design”? It was designed with close guidance to DEI principles, you racist!

[BobL]

“The White House opposes the defense spending bill, which honors the $895 billion cap mandated by the Fiscal Responsibility Act, for numerous other reasons, including the bill’s shipbuilding account, which is $761 million less that the FY-25 request and eliminates two ship procurements.”

Likewise I never thought I’d see the day when the DEMOCRATS would be demanding more money for weapons. But I guess when you’re trying to start World War 3, that’s what you do.

[Zhang Fei]

Will we even survive long enough for the adults to get back in charge of things?

The US is the highest income of the major industrial powers. Its military is the strongest in the world, by a country mile. Its corporations are household names around the world. Of the biggest 500 corporations in the world, American companies make 38% of the profits. Take out natural resource extraction and banks, and US companies would likely make the majority.

Re survival - Argentina has 100% inflation, and that's in a good year. It's surviving. Mad Max isn't on the horizon there, and no one thinks it is.

We fogeys tend to think in apocalyptic terms, that the end of the world is nigh. And for us, it is. Our body functions are breaking down, our joints hurt, our arteries are clogged, etc. But for the young, it's, as ever, morning in America. Apart from jealous rivals abroad engaging in wishful thinking, no one thinks the US isn't #1, let alone that collapse is on the horizon

[mistfree]

Currently ships are very vunerable. From subs, jets, missles, and drones. That money is better spent elsewhere.

[Candor7]

Excellent election issue. We wing it until next January 14th.

Have to. We have idiots running the country.

[Psalm 73]

"...no one thinks the US isn't #1, let alone that collapse is on the horizon"

That may just be "normalcy bias" - we're No. 1 and will always be no matter what.

We have proved to be more resilient than thought possible, but we cannot get caught believing we are indestructible.

We 're not sure where the edge of the cliff is, but that doesn't mean it's non-existent.

[alloysteel]

Wot a surprise. The military would better go unfunded than to allow this trash to be inserted into their operational budget. The purpose of the Department of Defense is to defend the homeland, and if that means Fortress America, so be it.

Once that vision is lost, there is little else to look forward to in that spirit and idea that was once constituted as the United States of America.

We are transforming into the Untied and Balkanized States of America. The real estate is still going to be there, but two or more factions will emerge out the other side, the Red state, nearly contiguous across the expanse, and perhaps a wide scattering of little Blue state republics, divided not by state lines, but by county lines or even city boundaries joined across former state borders.

[ComputerGuy]

Looks like they forgot the African countries.

[Zhang Fei]

[That may just be “normalcy bias” - we’re No. 1 and will always be no matter what.

We have proved to be more resilient than thought possible, but we cannot get caught believing we are indestructible.

We ‘re not sure where the edge of the cliff is, but that doesn’t mean it’s non-existent]

---

You wrote: [Will we even survive long enough for the adults to get back in charge of things?]. That suggests impending collapse into a Mad Max scenario, with a time frame measured in months or single digit years.

Plenty of major powers have declined over time, both absolutely and relatively. It’s hard to think of a single one that has fallen into Mad Max style anarchy over decades, let alone single digit years. The Roman decline, for instance, was over centuries and driven by a combination of hyper-inflation and problematic successions where rival generals touched off devastating civil wars to make themselves top dog every decade or so, with both of these factors feeding off and reinforcing each other. We don’t have hyperinflation, and modern armies don’t have marauding generals establishing themselves as kings in their own right, for various practical reasons interesting only to specialists in these topics.

[PIF]

Currently ships are very vulnerable. From subs, jets, missiles, and drones. That money is better spent elsewhere.

—
China’s PLAN loves you!!! There are lots of hungry & homeless - send the money to them instead, right?

[central_va]

Currently ships are very vulnerable. From subs, jets, missiles, and drones. That money is better spent elsewhere.

A hightly trained spec ops troop is highly vunerable to cheap supersonic weapons that only cost .50 per round!!! They are called bullets. EVERY military unit is vulnerable. They call it war.

[Psalm 73]

"That suggests impending collapse into a Mad Max scenario..."

Not necessarily - I'm thinking more in terms of a Soviet Block-type central government or Fascist Italy. The corporations will still be there, but (further) controlled by the state.

Energy, health care, banking, transportation - all state-controlled.

Never happen here you say? Really? (I think that's the thought-process they may be banking on).

[Flavious_Maximus]

“...don’t have marauding generals establishing themselves as kings...”

Have you been to Haiti lately?

[Pontiac]

Currently ships are very vunerable. From subs, jets, missles, and drones. That money is better spent elsewhere.

My read of recent history is that ships and everything else military is vulnerable from poor training and DIE.

I don’t care how good and modern the ships are if the sailors do’t know how to operate them.

And the same principle applies to the Air Force, Marines and Army. The Biden and Obama administrations abandoned the military to the forces of extreme political correctness and purged the Officer Corps of competence in favor of ideological purity.

Consequently our military can have the best of the best equipment on the battle field and we will still lose the battle.