House GOP Defense Bill Calls For Billions More In Defense Spending Than Obama Plan

[Galraedia]

Source: Huffington Post

WASHINGTON — In an election-year challenge to President Barack Obama, House Republicans are pressing ahead with a defense budget that adds billions of dollars, boosts nuclear weapons programs and slows cost-cutting reductions in the force as the military emerges from two long wars.

Republicans argue that the Democratic president is shortchanging the military and leaving the nation vulnerable, requiring billions more for defense. In a reversal earlier this year, the GOP abandoned the spending levels for defense and domestic programs set last summer in the deficit-cutting agreement between Obama and Congress. They boosted defense spending by $8 billion and offset the increase with deep cuts in safety-net programs for the poor such as Medicaid and food stamps.

The budget "helps ensure the Pentagon's new national security defense strategy is not a hollow one. And, despite historic cuts to our wartime military, it plugs critical capability and strategic shortfalls opened in the president's budget submission," Rep. Howard "Buck" McKeon, R-Calif., chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said Wednesday at the start of three days of debate. Final passage is expected on Friday.

But the GOP political argument that Obama is soft on defense has less resonance with voters after the killing of Osama bin Laden, repeated drone strikes in the war on terror and a weakened al-Qaida. Opinion surveys show that Americans give the president high marks on national security.

Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/17/defense-budget-house-gop_n_1523877.html?ref=politics

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The Republican idea of 'less spending': Boost defense spending by offsetting the increase with deep cuts in safety-net programs for the poor such as Medicaid and food stamps.

[awoke_in_2003]

1. With the way it is going...

Is this place really worth defending? The rich get richer, and the rest of us can go get fucked.

[shawn703]

2. Their foreign policy is pretty much the same as their domestic policy

Kill the poor.

[JoePhilly]

3. War is free.

[Swede Atlanta]

4. I've said this many times....

We could cut our military spending by 50% and still be able to defend "the Homeland" (reminds of the Nazis' Faderland). We might not be able to engage in adventurous and misguided world policing like launching and unpaid war of choice in Iraq. We might force our allies to ante up for their own defense. But we could defend our homeland.

I'm not advocating that kind of cut because we know the cuts wouldn't be in new arms programs that make the GOP's friends richer and richer. The cuts would be on the backs of the brave men and women in uniform, their families, their benefits, etc.

The GOP just wants to ramp up the military even more so if the murkan peeple can be lured into installing Robot RMoney at 1600 Penn. Ave next January, he can launch 2-3 more wars within a few weeks.

[ladjf]

5. The march of lunacy trudges on. nt

[KansDem]

6. And yet, my Rep--Kevin Yoder (R-KS) sent me a mailing a few days ago...

Last edited Thu May 17, 2012, 02:35 PM - Edit history (1)

...declaring he as going to cut spending in government.

From:
www.ontheissues.org

(Kevin) Yoder signed Balanced Budget Amendment

-Proposing a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution of the United States:
-Prohibits outlays for a fiscal year (except those for repayment of debt principal) from exceeding total receipts for that fiscal year (except those derived from borrowing) unless Congress, by a 3/5ths rollcall vote of each chamber, authorizes a specific excess of outlays over receipts.
-Requires a 3/5ths rollcall vote of each chamber to increase the public debt limit.
-Directs the President to submit a balanced budget to Congress annually.
-Prohibits any bill to increase revenue from becoming law unless approved by a majority of each chamber by rollcall vote.
-Authorizes waivers of these provisions when a declaration of war is in effect or under other specified circumstances involving military conflict.

There you have it. Cut spending for domestic programs but put the MIC on the nation's credit card...

[sofa king]

7. Here's an idea.

Let's give the Republicans an incentive to help Americans before they go and kill innocent people.

For every American whose life is improved by social programs, a Republican will receive a voucher to go and try to kill one innocent person somewhere overseas....

...To be redeemed when Jeb Bush sneaks in. Let's throw in room, board, and snappy uniforms, and make it compulsory so that they don't have to worry about forgetting.

[SkatmanRoth]

8. For over six decades, the Military Industrial Complex has owned Congress

The defense contractors make sure the manufacturing is spread over as many states as possible so a majority of our elected representatives have constituency employed in some aspect of the business. The contractors then grease the skids with campaign donations, gratuities, and favors to the politician's friends and family.

It is down right difficult to make a change where the opposition always has a majority of votes.

[tanyev]

9. The Democratic president is leaving our military contractors vulnerable.

Harrumph!

[firenewt]

10. I fear this is just the beginning of what I see as the far right's attempt to radically change

what the USA is all about. By cutting social programs across the board, the military may very well be the only option for many. The insane right will then have the army they need to enact the dream of world conquest under the banner of the their view of the Christian God. This possibility scares the hell out of me. Paranoid - absolutely. The agenda of the right is to fuck us up royally. America first, then the rest of the world.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

11. The GOP can pay for it out of their own pocket

taxpayers are tired of futile wars.