LAT/AP: Bush to Request $439.3B Defense Budget

[DeepModem Mom]

Bush to Request $439.3B Defense Budget
By LOLITA C. BALDOR, Associated Press Writer


WASHINGTON -- President Bush next week will request a $439.3 billion Defense Department budget for 2007, a nearly 5 percent increase over this year, according to senior Pentagon officials and documents obtained Thursday by The Associated Press.

The spending plan would include $84.2 billion for weapons programs, a nearly 8 percent increase, including billions of dollars for fighter jets, Navy ships, helicopters and unmanned aircraft. The total includes a substantial increase in weapons spending for the Army, which will get $16.8 billion in the 2007 budget, compared with $11 billion this year.

Senior defense officials provided the totals on condition of anonymity because the defense budget will not be publicly released until Monday. The figures did not include about $50 billion that Bush administration officials said Thursday they would request as a down payment for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in 2007. The administration said war costs for 2006 would total $120 billion.

The budget plan continues administration efforts to transform the military into a more efficient, agile fighting force, while also making investments in new technologies that will better equip troops to fight the global war on terror.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld would not provide any details of the budget Thursday but called it appropriate, adding: "We have been able to fund the important things that are needed. It is a sizable amount of money."...


http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/wire/ats-ap_top10feb02,0,252100.story

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

1. Read: $659,300,000,000.

[Warren Stupidity]

5. I get 559B

if you add in the 120B for endless wars. Where did you get the other 100B?

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

13. You're right.

But it won't be long.


ETA: I feel so much better now about the amount we're spending! :D

[HysteryDiagnosis]

2. Amurka's number one export product, militarism, it's not just for

openly hostile countries anymore.... not just for breakfast either....

[fooj]

3. Where the hell is the 11 Billion that they "lost"???

Didn't Murtha say that only 84 million out of twice that amount was appropriated after the last budget request?

Show me the money!!!

Peace.

[shanti]

21. it's in their bank accounts, where it was always intended

to go. :(

[LiberalAndProud]

4. geezums i'm getting dizzy

all those zeroes

i cannot believe it.

[Skink]

7. In other news the House passes 40 billion in cuts to "entitlements".

[Warren Stupidity]

6. Day after gutting student aid medicare and medicaide

yup we sure do have our priorities set. What would Jesus do? He'd buy more guns bombs ships and planes fer sure.

[RC]

9. Well, ya. The SOTU lie fest is over. Time to do the opposite

[FloridaPat]

8. First is was $1 billion a week. Couple weeks ago it was $1.5 billion.

And things are going so well that next year it will be $2 billion a week. Sure hate to see the non-budget if things weren't going well.

What could we do with all the trillions these clowns are loosing or throwing to the military industrial complex?

[Geo55]

10. This is NOT for defense.

When any society lets some of their citizens go hungry in favor of making weapons , it is in decline.

[Rose Siding]

11. You're so right. Defense would be levies, and alternative energy

and education, health care and resources for poor neighborhoods to assure our future.

[Art_from_Ark]

16. If you listen to the rightwingers, this is how Reagan "singlehandedly"

defeated godless Communism-- by making them devote their national budget to the military, while virtually ignoring the average citizen. The cognitive dissonance must really be driving them crazy :crazy:

[Geo55]

19. They replaced the "godless" commies

with the shadow "terrorists".....the "commies" did cost a bit to confront....but the boy king
is just sucking the country dry to fight phantoms.

[SammyWinstonJack]

12. OBSCENE!

Much like the a$$ who's asking for this! :argh:

[thoughtanarchist]

14. $439B? Isn't the exact amount of the projected budget deficit?

You know it's bad when we're diggin' our hole to the tune of our yearly defense budget!

yeeOuch!

Never in in my lifetime have I seen such grotesque fiscal mismanagement.

[superconnected]

15. He's cleaning out the country for the defense companies his

family is invested in.

Remember he's nearly out of office now.

This war and the ones he's trying to start are the only way he's going to get his free for all financial rape of american in his lifetime.

[Clara T]

17. Every penny in this country goes to warmaking n/t

[Tight_rope]

18. Bush can come put it outta my ass...if he can find it!

[HuffleClaw]

20. but but but...

i'm SURE i remember them telling us that iraqi oil revenue would pay for the war!

[GoldenOldie]

22. What did we expect??

Georgie's rich daddy never taught him the value of a dollar and continued to bail him out of his business failures and his personal misadventures.

Why would anyone think that Daddy buying him the POTUS and with an additional benefit his own Army to play with would make him any more responsible with others money or lives?

Georgie is getting tired of his game and will be happy to return to his nothingness in Texas or whereever the hell spoiled, bratty rich kids go when tired of the game.

[tuvor]

24. It would if it weren't being pocketed by...Waitaminnit.

Hmm...2 million barrels/day x $50/barrel = $100 million

That's $36 billion per year!

Exactly who IS pocketing that money?

[kineneb]

23. rhetorical question: defense of what? n/t

[OneBlueSky]

25. Just Say NO! . . .

we need to be REDUCING so-called "defense" spending by about 25%, not increasing it 5% . . . does anyone actually believe that this country needs to spend a HALF TRILION dollars a year on the Pentagon? . . . hell, just the increase Bush is requesting would cover ALL of the domestic programs cuts that Congress is currently trying to enact! . . .

[pinniped]

26. Note, the graph always goes up, never down.

.

[woodsprite]

27. This is his plan to fund war with Iran or

defend Israel from Iran - plus some pocket change.