$33 billion more for the record defense budget while states face severe cuts in education.

[Karmadillo]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/13/AR2010011300668.html

Obama to ask for $33 billion for Afghan troop buildup

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama plans to ask Congress for $33 billion in emergency war funding for a major U.S. troop buildup in Afghanistan this year, defense officials said on Wednesday. The money, mainly for the deployment of 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan and other war costs in the current 2010 fiscal year, would come on top of Obama's expected request to increase the Pentagon's overall budget in fiscal 2011 to a record $708 billion, the officials said on condition of anonymity.

http://www.boston.com/yourtown/budgetblues/2010/01/massachusetts_schools_brace_fo.html

Massachusetts schools brace for deep cuts

School administrators across the state are crafting bleak budgets for the next school year and warning of steep cutbacks, including teacher layoffs, to cope with a probable sharp drop in funding from Beacon Hill and dwindling federal stimulus money.

Though schools grappled with thinned-down budgets last year, they got relief from a massive infusion of federal education dollars that is now all but spent, and officials are bracing for cuts that go deep into the classroom.

Arlington is weighing the elimination of 21 elementary school teaching positions. Needham, for the first time in recent memory, is also proposing that teaching positions be cut, despite growing enrollment. Hingham, facing a $3 million deficit, has similarly placed 33 teaching positions on the block. Brockton is looking at a staggering shortfall that could approach $20 million.

“We dodged a bullet last year,’’ said Glenn Koocher, executive director of the Massachusetts Association of School Committees. “Now, people have taken the panic buttons out and are keeping them close. There’s an unprecedented level of angst, and it’s evolving into anger.’’

more...

[Robb]

1. In the interest of fairness

...When discussing the "record" federal defense budget, one should also point out it was a "record" year for education spending at a federal level, which increases some 7% annually. Although we only spent $67B on education in 2008, so there is little comparison in scale.

[Raster]

2. The military industrial Congressional complex is bleeding this country dry.

The Pentagon no longer exists to serve the citizens of the United States, we now exist to serve the Pentagon.

[invictus]

8. +1

[Karmadillo]

3. Kick for the Empire

nt

[happy_liberal]

4. just look at how they waste the money!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x7456400

[Karmadillo]

5. Thanks for the link. It's amazing they get away with it so easily.

nt

[Karmadillo]

6. Today one of the local Title I high schools laid off 7 teachers. No more substitutes

because teachers will be giving up their planning periods to cover for anyone who's absent. Class sizes will increase. That the Democrats would allow this to happen across the country is unexpected, to say the least. Mr. New Deal, he dead.

[Karmadillo]

7. The true cost of our national security budget is around $1 trillion/year.

That would build a lot of schools and pay for a lot of teachers & books & field trips.

http://www.counterpunch.org/wheeler01142010.html

<edit>

Those levels of Pentagon spending do not include what we pay for foreign aid, arms sales and arms control, Veterans, Homeland Security, the Pentagon's share of interest on the national debt, and more. To tally up our entire national security budget, we can get very cozy with $1 Trillion.