Obama increases “Defense” Spending for 2010

[Bushknew]

Obama Requested $40 Billion in Additional “Defense” Spending for 2010

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/02/03/kagan/index.html

Obama’s 2010 fiscal year budget calls for $527 billion in defense spending (not including the costs of Iraq and Afghanistan). That is more than the U.S. allocated for defense in 2009 and equals what the Bush administration budgeted for 2010:

The Obama administration has given the Pentagon a $527 billion limit, excluding war costs, for its fiscal 2010 defense budget, an official with the White House’s Office of Management and Budget said Monday.

If enacted, that would be an 8 percent increase from the $487.7 billion allocated for fiscal 2009, and it would match what the Bush administration estimated last year for the Pentagon in fiscal 2010.

[Postman]

1. Whew.....so glad a "progressive" is in the White House......

:sarcasm:

Afghanistan is going to be Obama's undoing. His Vietnam.

[stillcool]

8. His undoing matters so much more..

than ours does. How long has it been...2 weeks?

[L0oniX]

2. IT IS NOT DEFENSE ...IT IS OFFENSE!

[Winterblues]

3. Isn't that close to a hundred percent increase from Clinton's Defense Budget?

I had hoped for a different attitude on this. That money could be spent in "Protecting Americans" instead of military Contractors and super weapons. By "Protecting Americans" I mean spending on Cancer research and anti tobacco projects and aids research and diabetes prevention. Far more Americans die from preventable Health Problems than ever will die from Terror or War. Hell we lose more every three days from tobacco alone than 9-11 caused, yet we don't spend a hundredth of what we spend on Defense (not counting war expenses) Budgets. What is wrong with this picture?

[BlooInBloo]

4. Teh betrayal! It burns!

:rofl:

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

5. Not to worry, our "liberal" peace loving congress will turn it down.

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

[stillcool]

6. The Pentagon needs to be out-sourced...

to India or something.

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Military_Budget/Mega_Pentagon.html
The Mega-Pentagon: A Bush-Enabled Monster We Can't Stop
The Pentagon has developed a taste for unrivaled power and unequaled access to the treasury that won't be easily undone by future administrations.
by Frida Berrigan, Tomdispatch.com
www.alternet.org/, May 28, 2008

A full-fledged cottage industry is already focused on those who eagerly await the end of the Bush administration, offering calendars, magnets, and t-shirts for sale as well as counters and graphics to download onto blogs and websites. But when the countdown ends and George W. Bush vacates the Oval Office, he will leave a legacy to contend with. Certainly, he wills to his successor a world marred by war and battered by deprivation, but perhaps his most enduring legacy is now deeply embedded in Washington-area politics -- a Pentagon metastasized almost beyond recognition.
The Pentagon's massive bulk-up these last seven years will not be easily unbuilt, no matter who dons the presidential mantle on January 19, 2009. "The Pentagon" is now so much more than a five-sided building across the Potomac from Washington or even the seat of the Department of Defense. In many ways, it defies description or labeling.
Who, today, even remembers the debate at the end of the Cold War aboutå what role U.S. military power should play in a "unipolar" world? Was U.S. supremacy so well established, pundits were then asking, that Washington could rely on softer economic and cultural power, with military power no more than a backup (and a domestic "peace dividend" thrown into the bargain)? Or was the U.S. to strap on the six-guns of a global sheriff and police the world as the fountainhead of "humanitarian interventions"? Or was it the moment to boldly declare ourselves the world's sole superpower and wield a high-tech military comparable to none, actively discouraging any other power or power bloc from even considering future rivalry?
The attacks of September 11, 2001 decisively ended that debate. The Bush administration promptly declared total war on every front -- against peoples, ideologies, and, above all, "terrorism" (a tactic of the weak). That very September, administration officials proudly leaked the information that they were ready to "target" up to 60 other nations and the terrorist movements within them.
The Pentagon's "footprint" was to be firmly planted, military base by military base, across the planet, with a special emphasis on its energy heartlands. Top administration officials began preparing the Pentagon to go anywhere and do anything, while rewriting, shredding, or ignoring whatever laws, national or international, stood in the way. In 2002, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld officially articulated a new U.S. military posture that, in conception, was little short of revolutionary. It was called -- in classic Pentagon shorthand -- the 1-4-2-1 Defense Strategy (replacing the Clinton administration's already none-too-modest plan to be prepared to fight two major wars -- in the Middle East and Northeast Asia -- simultaneously).
Theoretically, this strategy meant that the Pentagon was to prepare to defend the United States, while building forces capable of deterring aggression and coercion in four "critical regions" (Europe, Northeast Asia, East Asia, and the Middle East). It would be able to defeat aggression in two of these regions simultaneously and "win decisively" in one of those conflicts "at a time and place of our choosing." Hence 1-4-2-1.
And that was just going to be the beginning. We had, by then, already entered the new age of the Mega-Pentagon. Almost six years later, the scale of that institution's expansion has yet to be fully grasped, so let's look at just seven of the major ways in which the Pentagon has experienced mission creep -- and leap -- dwarfing other institutions of government in the process.

[Deja Q]

23. Given the sheer number of complaints about offshored services and products being crap, why continue

for defense?!

[ipfilter]

7. Not all defense spending goes towards the purchase of bombs

and making war. The DoD is a huge employer of civilians and contractors. Cutting defense spending could do great damage to the economy as these are some of the more stable jobs right now. One could make the argument that increasing defense spending is stimulative to the economy. I'm a very conflicted individual because I work for the DoD but I'm about as anti-war as anyone. I cried when we invaded Iraq because I hated to see us use our assets in an act of aggression. I only hope we never invade a sovereign country again. Defense is necessary, invading and occupying other countries is not.

[Oregone]

10. "Defense is necessary"

At the levels we spend on it, it is hardly necessary

[Postman]

11. the key word here "defense" not an imperial offensive war machine that dominates our society...

the fact that you state the "more stable jobs" come from the war-making industry speaks volumes about just how corrupt this country has become.

[ipfilter]

12. I agree with that and it is the source of my internal conflict.

However, I have the needs of my family and financial obligations to meet so I can't just quit and move on.

[Postman]

15. I understand.

But we need to make other things in our country that sustain life instead of ending life.

We need to be an industrial country but I'm afraid that ship has sailed and the United States as it once existed is forever gone.

That may or may not be a good thing but if we don't start paying our workers a living wage we are on the fast track to becoming a third world nation with a first world military that serves at the will of the wealthy at the expense of the poor...

[Romulox]

19. So send some tanks to the D and do some "peacekeeping" there...

This isn't about jobs. It's about empire.

[Oregone]

9. defense you can believe in

[mopinko]

13. i think that he is wisely keeping his hands off the pentagon right now.

imho. he is picking his battles carefully. he is far more concerned with the economy right now, and finding his way with the congress. i also think he is trying to build up some trust within the defense sector. i think this is very smart of him. he can only take on so much at one time, and i think injecting a battle with the military/industrial complex right now would cause everything to boil over.
i wish he had been granted a magic wand on 1/20 as much as anyone. alas he is left with only his very human brain.

[Bushknew]

25. We'll see how this plays out. nt

[Le Taz Hot]

14. Oh, good

because goddess knows they're hurting for money.

Enter apologists.

[RethugAssKicker]

16. I fugured on foreign policy he would be

about the same as Rethugs...

just hope his domestic policies are a complete about face from
the rethugs.

[anonymous171]

17. Why can't we can the DoD's name back to the Department of War?

It was a cooler and more accurate description of their function. No more Orwellian bullshit.

[Romulox]

18. "Change!" is not necessarily positive, I guess.

:eyes:

[2Design]

20. I want it cut in half - its this the only job creation we have anymore n/t

[Barack_America]

21. Withdrawing from Iraq will cost money.

So too will becoming reengaged in Afghanistan.

Love it or hate it, this is what Obama said he would do.

[Individualist]

22. Change?

:rofl:
:rofl:
:rofl:

[stray cat]

24. that is also stimulus and we have lost a great deal in Iraq