Senate passes critical Pentagon budget bill

[cal04]

Source: Associated Press

The Senate will send President Barack Obama a critical budget bill that combines money for the Pentagon with additional help for the jobless.

Senators meeting Saturday in the midst of a snow storm cleared their plate of unfinished business as the legislative calendar ran out for 2009.

The 88-10 vote means the Senate can return to the acrimonious debate on health care. Democrats hope to pass that bill before Christmas.

(snip)
It also included two-month extensions of unemployment benefits for the long-term jobless. There were health care subsidies for people out of work, along with money for highways and transit systems.

Read more: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34488925/ns/politics-capitol_hill/

[Tippy]

1. K&R...

[SandWalker1984]

2. A surge at $57,077.60 per minute, or $12 MILLION per hour

A surge at $57,077.60 a minute
By Jo Comerford

The sum of US $57,077.60. That's what the United States is paying per minute. Keep that in mind - just for a minute or so.

After all, the surge is already on. By the end of December, the first 1,500 of 30,000 additional US troops will have landed in Afghanistan, a nation roughly the size of Texas, ranked by the United Nations as second-worst in the world in terms of human development.

Women and men from Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, will be among the first to head out. It takes an estimated $1 million to send each of them surging into Afghanistan for one year. So a 30,000-person surge will be at least $30 billion, which brings us to $57,077.60. That's how much it will cost the US taxpayer, for one minute of that surge.

By the way, add up the yearly salary of one US Marine Corps soldier from Camp Lejeune with four years of service, throw in his or her housing allowance, additional pay for dependents, and bonus pay for hazardous duty, imminent danger, and family separation, and you'll still be many thousands of dollars short of that single minute's sum.

- snip -

For purposes of comparison, $30 billion - remember, just the Pentagon-estimated cost of a 30,000-person troop surge - is equal to 80% of the total US 2010 budget for international affairs, which includes monies for development and humanitarian assistance. On the domestic front, $30 billion could double the funding (at 2010 levels) for the Children's Health Insurance Program and the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program.

- snip -

One more thing, that $30 billion isn't even the real cost of President Barack Obama's surge. It's just a minimum, through-the-basement estimate. If you were to throw in all the bases being built, private contractors hired, extra civilians sent in, and the staggering costs of training a larger Afghan army and police force (a key goal of the surge), the figure would surely be startlingly higher.

In fact, total Afghanistan war spending for 2010 is now expected to exceed $102.9 billion, doubling last year's spending. Thought of another way, it breaks down to $12 million per hour in taxpayer dollars for one year.


Read the rest of the story at Asia Times Online http://atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/KL19Df01.html


Just some more of Obama Orwell's "chains" you can believe in.

[No Elephants]

3. Of course the Senate passed a Pentagon bill. Smart to include 2 months of unemployment to make it

more palatable to the doves.

[Jokerman]

4. Two months of unemployment and endless war. n/t

[progressoid]

5. Phew! I was worried they wouldn't get it done!

:sarcasm: