Obama to cut defense budget

I do not know if $512 billion is a lot or a little for our defense, but I am growing concerned with a string of his actions as they relate to our war against terrorist.


The Obama administration has asked the military's Joint Chiefs of Staff to cut the Pentagon's budget request for the fiscal year 2010 by more than 10 percent -- about $55 billion -- a senior U.S. defense official tells FOX News.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/01/30/defense-official-obama-calling-defense-budget-cuts/

You remove the option of extreme interrogations on really bad guys, you close the only logical place we can take terrorist caught fighting against us, now you slash the defense budget by $55 Billion. Plus he did it quietly on a Friday afternoon when most press would not pick it up.

Maybe Obama knows more than I do about the defense budget. Maybe there is $55 billion in pork projects (golf courses etc...). Is the VA part of the Defense budget?

 

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/01/02/military_spending/

http://www.globalissues.org/article/75/world-military-spending

 

Sure could've used that chart a few years ago when people were complaining that we didn't have enough troops or equipment, proper equipment in Iraq and Afghanistan!
Makes you wonder where the money is going and what it is spent on?
Who are making the right or wrong choices?

This also shows why Dems have the bad reputation on national defense.
They never saw a military cut they didn't like.
No one should be surprised here.
It seems like we need more troops so that these guys don't have to do double and triple tours but what the heck do I know?

 

I am sure DOD has wasted money and their are R&D weapons and equipment that will never see the battlefield. There is probably 10 or even 20% you could cut, But to ask the Joint Chiefs to work on it over the weekend sounds knee jerk to me. We cut DOD budget by 10% but lets send more troops to Afghanistan?

 

Btw, I'm almost 100% sure the war on terrorism ended when Bush left office.
The Dems support Bill Clinton's war on terrorism.
Closing Gitmo and try them on American soul with the same rights as Americans.

Obama is planning to meet with Iran and terrorists in person, that tells you everything you need to know about his policy against terrorists!

 

So great, now we lob a cruise missile every once in a while and call it an offensive campaign. Not my idea of taking the fight to the enemy. Sounds more like a reactionary policy.

And we are NOT going to talk to Iran until we apologize to them for being a bully.

How does Obama got to feel... "Iran we would like to acknowledge you as a world player, give your country and government credibility"
Their response,
"We will not allow you to talk to us until you apologize for all the horrible things we think you have done the last decade"

 

Red, Again I agree there is waste in the DOD budget. A budget that big you can always find ways to be leaner. I think we should pay our troops more, provide them better equipment and increase their numbers so as to reduce the burden on the existing numbers.

So if Obama is really concerned with saving money, why is he allowing so much money in the stimulus package that will not create any type of stimulus?

He is talking out of both sides of his mouth. You can not say one Friday afternoon the Military has to tighten their belt to save $55 billion next year because we are hurting financially, then turn around and allow a "stimulus" package to pass and you sign it that has $335 million to educate kids about STDs. How many jobs is that going to create? Why not spend that same $335 million on cancer research or Alzheimer research? At least doctors would be funded for research and we might get something good out of it. Come to think of it who the hell thinks we need to spend $335 million telling kids how not to get STDs?

Also there is $600,000,000 for buying and giving out conversion boxes for this switch over. At $25 a box that is 24,000,000 more of these damn boxes. How many boxes did they buy the first time? How is this going to stimulate the economy? They are going to buy them from China and give them to people here.

I did not mean to convert this to a stimulus thread but if Obama is asking all departments to tighten their belts why is he supporting so much pork in the stimulus that has nothing to do with stimulating our economy?

Here is a little i pulled from an ABC news article.
$335 million for education related to sexually transmitted diseases
"We have yet to hear any reasonable rationale for how this creates any jobs in the private sector," Paige told "GMA."
$650 million for coupons to help people make the switch to digital TV
$50 million for the National Endowment for the Arts
$150 million for the Smithsonian Institution
$50 million for the National Cemetery Administration's monument and memorial repairs
$800 million for Amtrak, the country's railroad system
$2 billion for child-care subsidies (How do you distribute this and how does it stimulate the economy?)
$400 million for global warming research
$100 million for reducing the danger of lead paint in homes (Really?)
$2.4 billion for carbon-capture demonstration projects
$50 million for NASA facilities that may have been harmed by natural disaster
$200 million for the U.S. Geological Survey to monitor earthquakes and volcanoes
$650 million for the U.S. Forest Service to remove fish passage barriers, forest improvement and watershed enhancement projects
$1.5 million for a National Institute of Health/Institute of Medicine report to Congress
$50.6 million for services for older blind individuals (What about younger blind people? Or what about older deaf people?)
$400 million for the Social Security Administration's new National Computer Center
$325 million for Academic Achievement Awards
In the Senate version, there are additional servings of what conservatives term pork that won't generate new jobs, including:
$70 million for programs to help people quit smoking (you got to be kidding?)
$75 million for a super-computer for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
The Senate version of the bill is also expected to boost the cost of the stimulus package to $900 billion and includes a measure that is sure to irk conservative House members. The Senate is poised to attach to the bill a measure that would alter the Alternative Minimum Tax to reduce the tax bills of middle class families.
The change would add $70 billion to the budget deficit. Fiscally conservative House members blocked the measure in the past because the Senate would not specify cuts to make up the difference.

 

Crazy little thing called pork!

 

I am not necessarily for cutting the military, especially in a time of war, but perhaps Obama has identified wasteful spending? If he can make it run leaner and just as well or better, I am for it. Admittedly I have not researched any proposed cuts, but can anyone here say with a straight face that there has not always been bloated budgets in military spending?

$500 hammers ring a bell? Maybe this is more of the same.