Obama proposes increased defense spending

[Hannah Bell]

Last week US Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates unveiled a multiyear military budget proposal that would increase spending in 2011 by 1 percent, to $553 billion, and that would outstrip inflation each year until 2015 and 2016, when it would ostensibly be held flat.

Presented in the media as “frugal” and an “austerity” budget, the proposal would actually maintain military spending in real terms at all-time post-World War II highs.

Nor did Gates’ plan include a separate $120 billion request to fund the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq for another year that will bring the overall defense budget to $773 billion. The “contingency funding” request, reported by Politico, was made in a closed-door meeting with top Congressional leaders last week. The new figure is more than double the amount projected by the Obama administration last year, when it estimated that only $50 billion would be needed.

The Gates plan, which must be approved by Congress, is also based on “fuzzy math,” as one defense analyst put it. Most of the $78 billion in reduced spending for next year had already been imposed by Obama through his freeze on federal employee pay increases, which affects Defense Department civilian employees but not military personnel. Much of the remainder of the anticipated savings comes from the proposal assuming that the cost of military goods will be less expensive than previously estimated.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2011/jan2011/defe-j11.shtml

[Catherina]

1. I'm glad we don't have any pressing domestic needs to spend that money on. Rec'd. n/t

[theHandpuppet]

16. +1

I'll see that and up you one rec'd.

[Catherina]

18. Thanks Handpuppet. n/t

[villager]

2. Gosh, why is our culture so violent? It's almost like violence is the main thing we allocate...

...resources for!

[Newest Reality]

6. Should we assume that the underlying

motivation is violence?

It looks like money/power/resources are the issue, (for whom and by whom?) and the violence is merely the way to take/have what is desired. I mean, they won't ask nicely and there is a huge bankroll of our money being spent, (as has been in other "wars") on these occupations.

For example, violence for its own sake, to me, is when somebody, (or a town, country, etc.) pisses somebody else off and then they get to lobbing poo, rocks or bombs. That is violence for its own sake.

Some people are getting very rich of this scheme and, well, power comes with the cash when it is the operating, abstract god.

Edit: Typo.

[villager]

10. we should assume it's implicit violence (from the state) that keeps the whole thing going

And that particular message is about the only thing that "trickles down" these days...

You can't allocate resources on weapons that destroy the world (or "merely" pulverize bodies) without there being some eventual psychological repercussions to the group doing the allocating. Or being forced to.

[kwolf68]

3. Fail

I wish he wouldn't do this. Don't we have enough munitions to blow up the world already?

I didn't vote for a President to fuel the military-industrial complex.

[Name removed]

4. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Dont_Bogart_the_Pretzel]

8. +1

[azul]

5. Gates is the guy paraded about to cover criminality.

I cannot believe President Obama would keep him on, continue to play that game.

What do you know, just before gates arrives in China for the military pow-wow, China announces that it has an operational anti-ship missile and a stealth fighter.

Gives Gates ammo when he gets back to battling the military budget critics. The real mindbender is that congress will have to increase the deficit to pay for the new and better military stuff we now need, and have to ask China and other countries to finance the debt.

And the Chinese military brass is talking about punishing the US financially for selling arms to Taiwan, just as Gates arrives there.

[Bluebear]

7. Are the "tough choices" he was going to make on the budget?

[leftstreet]

9. In DC a 'tough choice' is deciding which contractor get$ the bid

:grr:

[hlthe2b]

11. Oh for gawd's sakes...

Damn it all! :mad:

[Poll_Blind]

12. This is so shameful. He'll show us what real austerity is right after this passes and...

...for us it will not be so kind. The wars continue to eat while everyone else starves.

PB

[BlueIris]

13. What happened to reigning it in? Telling Americans we would need to sacrifice?

While not shocking, this is yet another glaring example of the Admin's hypocrisy and misplaced priorities. Really misplaced priorities.

[Karmadillo]

14. I can't believe Bush is doing this. Isn't he aware of the suffering this inflicts on innocents? How

can he sleep at night? Think of the innocents who will be murdered by our drones! Think of how we could make the world a better place by spending it to improve lives instead of destroying countries. Imagine what we could do with that money at home! Look at all the states and localities making cuts to essential services. Bush is stealing money from the American people to feed his cronies in the military-industrial complex. These people are monsters. We have to act! We have to stop this now! We have to--what? Say again? You're kidding me, right? Not Bush? Pull the other one. Really? Obama? It's the Obama administration bloating the military budget even more than Bush? It's the Obama administation continuing to fund war crimes, ignoring the suffering they cause, ignoring the suffering at home? Well. What do you know? Of course, when you think about it, it's wrong to pull support from the troops when they've been committed to an objective. And it's not like the Afghans can bring their country into the modern world on their own. They need us! Think of those women who are opporessed by the Taliban! And 9/11! If we let the terrorists get away with what they did to us, they'll just do it again, this time with more destruction, this time with more innocents dead. We have to fight! We have to spread our values across the globe until all is well and we'll never have to fight again. We were not made a city upon a hill for nothing. We have been given a mission. Let us not shrink from it, lets us not give in to fatigue, let us run and not be weary, let us rise up with wings as eagles. Fight the good fight! Let the evildoers tremble as we make them taste justice! Gobama! Go USA!

[Fumesucker]

15. I for one welcome the same old military overlords..

Once you pay the Danegeld you never get rid of the Dane..

And we have paid the Danegeld for a very long time.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danegeld

[SOS]

17. Federal income tax receipts totaled $975 billion in 2009

Nearly every penny of income tax withheld from your paycheck is going to the War Department.