8% funding increase (DoD) =$40 Billion is a "cut" in their world

[underpants]

$40 billion increase in proposed Pentagon budget spun as ‘defense cuts’ by right wing.»

The Obama administration is reportedly capping the Pentagon’s 2010 budget for non-war spending at $527 billion, a level previously recommended by Bush administration officials. Despite the fact that this will represent an 8 percent increase over 2009 funding levels, conservative commentators are painting the cap as a budget cut. CQ’s Josh Rogin reports:

Some Pentagon officials and congressional conservatives are already trying to portray the OMB number as a cut by comparing it to a $584 billion draft fiscal 2010 budget request compiled last fall by the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

The $527 billion figure is “what the Bush people thought was the right number last February and that’s the number we’re going with,” said the OMB official, who declined to be identified. “The Joint Chiefs did that to lay down a marker for the incoming administration that was unrealistic. It’s more of a wish list than anything else.”

Defense budget experts have said the draft by the Joint Chiefs, which was never publicly released, was designed to pressure the Obama administration to drastically increase defense spending or be forced to defend a reluctance to do so.

Chris Bowers notes, “While it is disappointing that the Obama administration is not looking to cut the defense budget during its first year in office, generally speaking this does not seem like a year when spending of any sort is being cut.”

http://thinkprogress.org/2009/02/02/pentagon-budget-increase/

[maxsolomon]

1. why are we bankrupt?

the MIC.

the DoD should be cut in half. or by 2/3.

[Fovea]

2. No Standing Army.

That would be the founder's ideal made real.

A small self defense force under a nuclear shield is adequate defense.

More port inspectors, more border patrols.

That is what security looks like.

[TheWraith]

3. That doesn't really work these days.

The idea of no standing army was before there was such a thing as an Air Force, Navy, or complex weaponry and tactics that needed long-term training.

[razors edge]

5. Actually,

the Navy was a standing part of the original national defense. It provided the first line of defense on the shores and protected trade against piracy.

Obviously there was no concept of aircraft or ICBMs in the 1700s. But that does not mean we necessarily have to abandon the original concepts. There is no reason the Air Force could not be treated as the Navy was, or as we like to think of the CIA, acting only outside the boarder even as they train and equip inside our boarder.

I hope we don't have a need for the Air Force to drop bombs or launch nukes on the US, we haven't had one so far.

The standing Army was disbanded after WWI and didn't become normal till after WWII.

[Fovea]

6. The standing army

lost its cache as of 1979 when Hackett, et al wrote WWIII, August 1984 to prove the unwinnability of conventional war in the 20th C.

All wars must now be thought of as pre-nuclear.
Nothing has occurred since then to negate that paradigm.

Hence, states police actions that pantomime war to support the arms industry, and promote only controllable proxy conflicts.
The two exceptions in the West have been GW 1 and OIF.

In the East, Chechnya, Sri Lanka, and Tibet.

Traditional military power is a jobs program and a gravy train that has almost nothing to do with security.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

4. Speaking of pork....the Pentagon is the biggest piggie on the block.