Bush Seeks Big Jump in Missile Defense Spending

[papau]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=578&ncid=578&e=1&u=/nm/20040130/ts_nm/arms_usa_budget_dc

Bush Seeks Big Jump in Missile Defense Spending !

By Jeremy Pelofsky

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Bush administration will ask Congress to boost spending on missile defense by $1.2 billion next year and nearly double funding to modernize the Army in the $401.7 billion U.S. military budget for 2005, according to Pentagon documents released on Friday.

The defense plan is part of a proposed $2.3 trillion federal budget President Bush will send to lawmakers on Monday. It includes a 7 percent increase in defense spending over the current level of $375 billion.

The Pentagon said the defense budget documents -- scheduled to be formally released on Monday with the president's overall budget -- were inadvertently posted on the Internet on Friday morning. They were later removed.

The administration seeks to boost funding for its controversial missile defense program (deploying the initial parts of a missile defense shield by September) by 13 percent to $10.2 billion next year from $9 billion requested for fiscal 2004. <snip>

...$3.2 billion for the Army's "Future Combat System," a high-tech plan to make soldiers more mobile and lethal in the post-Cold War world.

....$74.9 billion(down from 81.1 billion war related costs this year) to buy weapons and other equipment in the 2005 fiscal year, starting Oct. 1.

...defense budget does not include up to $40 billion or more in supplemental spending for military operations in Iraq

..$4.6 billion for Lockheed Martin Corp.'s Joint Strike Fighter, or F-35

...$69 billion in weapons research and development

...buy 24 of Lockheed Martin Corp's F/A-22 Raptor fighter aircraft in fiscal 2005 for a total of $3.6 billion

...three V-22 "Osprey" tilt-rotor aircraft in 2005 for a cost of $305.6 million

<snip>

[kcwayne]

1. Brilliant, absolutely brilliant

We spend 1.2 billion on missles (lining some greedy Republican assholes' pocket), and the people that threaten us spend $4.25 on a boxcutter at Walmart.

Military intelligence is an oxymoron.

[papau]

2. If we know we need $40 B not in budget - why not put it in Budget?

:-)

[Whoa_Nelly]

3. Say good-bye

to funding for improving the public school education system, to funding for disabled Americans, including those in school, to programs designed to help those in need, to making it possible for those who have AIDS to receive a break in the costs of their care, and to any and all other genuine benefit programs.

Say hello further invasions of sovereign nations that are "needed" to support corporate/oil greed. And say hello to the the return of the draft.

[maggrwaggr]

4. corporate welfare with your tax dollars

that's all missile defense is. It won't work, it's a black hole of pork.

[kcwayne]

5. The only reason we need missles today

is to protect the assets of "American" corporations that have moved their operations half way around the world, and still have the audacity to demand Americans sacrifice to protect them.

China will be a little more circumspect about nationalizing all the businesses we have put over there if they know that Uncle Sam has 20,000 nukes ready to deploy.

If those fuckers want to abandon the US for foreign shores, they should buy their own god damned missles, and hire their own army to protect them and get off our backs. I will leave this country before I allow my child to be sent overseas to protect the likes of GE, Halliburton, and Walmart.

[fleetus]

6. Does anyone know a link to detailed military spending?

I'm trying to compile a fact sheet for people in the military and one thing I'm looking for is ($ spent on troop's pay and welfare/$ total defense budget) over the years by administration.

I have a hunch that people in the military think voting Democrat is like biting the hand that feeds them. I'm trying to show that it's more like biting the hand that feeds contractors and money pits like Star Wars.

[finecraft]

7. Our Friends at DARPA - Future Combat System

From their website:
http://www.peogcs.army.mil/future.cfm

Who We Are:
We provide a versatile family of combat systems that represent the way the Army will fight wars in the future. We will field an integrated system of combat systems in blocks until the full objective capability is realized to meet the goals of Army Transformation. These systems will incorporate the latest technologies for mobility, lethality, sensor platforms, and survivability. FCS will represent a technological revolution in combat operations ensuring success on the future battlefield.

What We Do:
Have fun in what we do and pride in the services we provide

[underpants]

8. What happened to wanting the FACTS?

Damn that didn't take long.

[truthisfreedom]

9. we are sufferring from identity theft... our country's been defrauded at

the highest level.

[NickB79]

10. Wonderful, more money down the ole missile-defense-shield hole

Bush just conveniently ignores the fact that true missile defense against incoming ballistic missiles is all but unworkable. But then, I guess the weapons corporations wouldn't get their corporate handouts, would they?