I'm Joeverkill, and these are some Notes from the Right-Wing.
From Reuters:
The House of Representatives on Thursday passed a $601.4 billion defense spending bill despite a veto threat by the White House...
Rep. Ike Skelton, the Missouri Democrat who chairs the committee, and the ranking Republican, Rep. Duncan Hunter of California, argued that lawmakers needed flexibility to add weapons to the budget that had been forgotten by the Pentagon."We've put in systems that save lives that the Pentagon did not think about," Hunter said on the floor of the House, citing added funding for armor for Army trucks, greater use of unmanned airplanes, and equipment to defuse roadside bombs.
So to recap, the Democrat-controlled Congress is adding money to a defense bill to pay for stuff that the Pentagon didn't ask for. The federal government is $9 trillion in debt, and the Democrats -- who have repeatedly accused the Bush administration of starting a costly and irresponsible war -- are tacking extra cash onto a military funding bill, just because they feel like it?
Can anyone say "kickbacks?"
This is the sickening thing about our so-called "2-party system." Neither side seems interested in curbing spending, and neither will acknowledge that we have a federal debt crisis on our hands.
Some smaller things that piss me off about this bill...
The White House also cited objections, but no veto threat, to the addition of $3.9 billion for 15 additional Boeing C-17 cargo planes and $523 million as a down payment on 20 more Lockheed Martin Corp F-22 fighters in fiscal 2010.
Do we really need more F-22's? Really? The Air Force's website claims that "The F-22A cannot be matched by any known or projected fighter aircraft." I once read an article in the Florida Today in which an Air Force captain claimed that a single F-22 with a skilled pilot could dismantle the entire air combat capability of most sovereign nations. And we're ordering 20 new ones. Just for this year.
The veto threat also covers provisions that would require the videotaping of all intelligence interrogations and would ban private contractors from carrying out interrogations, a job lawmakers said should be reserved for the government alone.
So Bush is threatening to veto accountability. Nothing new about that.
The White House said cuts to funding to start building missile-defense sites in Poland and the Czech Republic could jeopardize U.S. security and delay the fielding of weapons meant to protect against an emerging missile threat from Iran.
The Democratic-controlled House approved $10.2 billion in funding for missile defense, $719 million less than the Pentagon requested, but $212.6 million above the current level.
The Senate Armed Services Committee bill fully funded the administration's plan to start deploying up to 10 interceptor missiles in Poland and a tracking radar in the Czech Republic.
Missile defense sites in Poland and the Czech Republic. Someone should note that these sites would not serve to protect the United States from missile attack. It would protect our European allies, our military bases in Europe and Western Asia, and Israel. The only countries with missiles that could hit the mainland U.S. are definitely not going to launch them at us. When people hear "missile defense," they think of a big scary nuke randomly flying into their town, when in reality that would never happen. Not by missile anyway. The government would serve citizens better by spending that money on port and airline security.
I'm Joeverkill, and this has been Notes from the Right-Wing.
2 responses:
Don't know if you saw the political documentary- one of the millions of anti-war, war for oil, save the planet docs that seem to be mass-produced nowadays, but anyways- called "Why We Fight."
It's about the Military-Industrial Complex and how even the most left-leaning representatives in congress would never even consider bringing up the military budget because the weapons being manufactured come from the blue collar, pro-union labor jobs in their districts.
No, we don’t need a million more F-22s or whatever (I forgot- is this the Cold War?) but that’s not exactly what the Raytheons, Lockheed-Martins, Boeings and General Electrics want to hear from the men they put in office, as their business models rely on constant war, or at least constant fear of war, and thus more needless arms.
The right got us into the military spending spree we’re in currently and the left is bending over backwards (forwards sometimes, too) to prove they can spend even more. You’re dead on in your anger at this ridiculous situation.
The supposedly anti-war Dems vote again and again to keep shoveling money into the defense industry and the war effort, while the “conservative” GOP nickel-and-dimes the left when they perceive that, were they in charge of the House, they would be slightly less completely out of control with the next generation’s credit card. A sad state of affairs.
I commend you for bringing up the outlandish military budget, something that’s a HUGE taboo with candidates from either of our two (or is it just one now?) parties.
that's more noticeable in few places than here in san diego - duncan hunter is actually my congressman. this is an extensive military town with three very significant bases. many of my friends growing up had fathers who worked for general dynamics or other defense contractors.
growing up here, the assumption always was that military spending is inherently good. war is good for the san diego economy (though terrible on san diego families).
the military-industrial establishment that eisenhower warned us about is truly here. i don't know how else to explain away massive amounts of federal (deficit) expenditures go into funding military development, especially as disproportionate as it is to the rest of the world's spending and our spending as a whole. spending more on defense than the rest of the world combined is ludicrous, and the only word that it brings to my mind is "empire".
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