House passes $649 Billion defense spending bill

WASHINGTON (AP) — The House has passed a $649 billion defense spending bill that boosts the Pentagon budget by $17 billion.

The vote was 336-87 on Friday. The legislation would provide $119 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and a 1.6 percent pay raise for military personnel.

The vote came after the House turned back an amendment by Democratic Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio that would have barred funds for the U.S. operation against Libya.

http://news.yahoo.com/house-passes-649b-defense-spending-bill-161144370.html

and in the meanwhile Obama and Boehner are in negotiations to figure out a way to reduce the deficit!

It would be a lot of money to spend in 10 years.

now we need to discuss entitlement spending as part of the debt ceiling talks.

Strange :(

If we can't borrow more, how can we possibly fund this juggernaut?

at some point you have to believe that the administration wanted to put entitlement reform on the table.

Think back to the Obama speech in early January 2009 about the need to reduce the deficit and that entitlements would play a large part in the discussions.

:shrug:

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2009/02/weighing-the-ir/?du

February 25, 2009

In his address last night on the economic crisis, President Barack Obama made it official: No more budgetary sleight-of-hand at the Pentagon.

As we have noted here before, the U.S. military has largely paid for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan through emergency spending measures, in effect keeping wartime costs off the books. In addition to masking skyrocketing budget growth at the Department of Defense, this process has allowed the services to treat budget supplementals as a piggy bank for new procurement. Members of Congress may have grumbled about poor oversight, but they have largely acquiesced.

Obama’s message? Not anymore.

"That is why this budget looks ahead ten years and accounts for spending that was left out under the old rules – and for the first time, that includes the full cost of fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan," he said. "For seven years, we have been a nation at war. No longer will we hide its price."

This is the first real move toward belt-tightening at the Pentagon; we’ll see if the new Defense Department budget reflects it, and Obama’s pledge to stop "paying for Cold War-era weapons systems we don’t use."

My add: Too bad the next part of this story didn't happen. Would the US be in a better place economically if the occupation of Iraq would have actually ended last year? Is it reasonable to expect intervention in another country go on forever or until they get their house in order according to US standards (whatever that means).

War weary, Americans seem to accept war as a way of life, occupation of foreign lands as normal, killing innocent people with drones okay.

the Dems make a stink about raising the debt ceiling as they voted for more war funding?

Or why didn't the Dems raise the ceiling during the extension of the Bush tax cuts? Why wait til now - only reason I can figure is because the administration wanted to put entitlement reform on the table.

:shrug:

I’m not a negotiation specialist, so I don’t really know who’s right here. But what’s always seemed obvious was that the time to raise the debt ceiling was back in December, when Democrats and Republicans jointly agreed to increase the deficit by $850 billion in order to extend the Bush tax cuts and add some further cuts on top of that. When I asked Democrats about this at the time, they kept telling me that Republicans needed to learn the awful and awesome responsibility that was governing. “Let the Republicans have some buy-in on the debt. They’re going to have a majority in the House,” said Harry Reid. “I don’t think it should be when we have a heavily Democratic Senate, heavily Democratic House and a Democratic president.”

This made absolutely zero sense to me then, and it makes zero sense to me now. The tax deal happened after an election, so people had the breathing room to be a bit more responsible, and it was a moment in which Republicans desperately wanted to do something that was going to vastly increase the deficit. Instead, Republicans got the deficit-busting tax cuts they wanted, and they didn’t have to offset them or okay more borrowing to get them or even admit that tax cuts increase deficits, and they have a bunch of new members who think raising the debt ceiling would tick off Thomas Jefferson, and the Obama administration is probably going to have to agree to cut health care for poor people and replace the word “carbon” with the word “air-cleaner” just to get a vote on this. All of which was 100 percent predictable a few months ago, but instead, Reid wanted “buy-in” from the GOP, so now he’s going to get it good and hard.

By Ezra Klein | 02:03 PM ET, 04/12/2011

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/why-didnt-the-democrats-include-the-debt-ceiling-in-the-tax-deal/2011/04/12/AFVvMJRD_blog.htm?du

unless the Dems really wanted to put entitlements on the table.

:(

:puke:

but here, will this do in a pinch?:



Cuz that's about the way I'm feeling right now myself!



:hi:

Uh..here...let me sign that.

Bring it on! Moar Moar Moar wars! Fun fun fun x(

“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.” H.L. Mencken

That is worse than throwing the cash into a fire.

Just plain stupid. Home of the brave my ass.

"the organizing power of the state is WAR" --

They can also do a lot behind the cover of war -- PATRIOT ACT --

And how much lost in Iraq? $9 Billion, $18 Billion -- or is it $23 billion in cash?

How much can't our Pentagon account for ... $2.3 Trillion or is it $3.4 Trillion?


We're paying $1,000 per gallon to KBR in Iraq for gasoline which would keep a helicopter

in the air for a minute!

The bill for air conditioning is larger than our NASA budget!!

Where's the logic in yelling all the time for budget cuts and less federal government while passing an even bigger DOD bill??

This is insanity!!

Maybe we should have a "Thread of the Day" stuck to the top of the GD section.
Important news that we should discuss for 24 hours.

Whattya say?

Just curious as to why this remains at the top of the greatest page after 27 + hours. n/t

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=439&topic_id=1431076&mesg_id=1441918

And it is still there as I type.

And here I thought we had a 24 hour day!!

long time and check on it.

:shrug:

Just stick it to the top of the forum until 6 PM tonight EST.

Come on, don't you think it is a good idea to have a "Thread of the Day" here in the GD section?

"What the fuck happened to the Delta I used to know?"

Take my defense bill, please.

My Senator complains I never take him anywhere.
I took him to the airport, he started tapping toes with an undercover cop in the restroom.

My kids hate me.
Just the other day one of them asked me if I was still posting at DU and when I said "Yeah sure", they all called me a loser on their Facebook accounts.

I had a ball but I lost it when I joined this forum.
It's small, not very big, but it was red, a rubber ball, and throwing it against the wall is how I used to kill the afternoons when I was a kid in the summer.

My wife can't cook.
So I asked her "What's for dinner tonight?"
She said "How do I know, the pizza boy hasn't come yet."

It's not surprising that wars cost money. I yearn for someone with vision for bringing them to an end to find a way to be heard. Really heard.

and just burn it. Save for military pay and whatever veteran's benefits are contained in that bill just as much good would come of it.

Okay, so I have been scrolling through the latest threads to catch up on my lunch hour,
deficit...blahblahblah
spending cuts...blahblahblah
no money for the poor, no money to fix our infrastructure, no money for creating jobs

but there's EASY money for bullets, and drones, and guns, and bombs! :bounce:
and if you can;t find a job, just ENLIST!
...and don't we feel better about our safety when the bad guys we may never see across the oceans are dead?
...and don't we feel safer sleeping in our cardboard boxes when we know our country is killing families for US?

I am just so fucking done, I can;t bring myself to even care anymore, it just makes me ill

all I can do is try to salvage my own life and prepare for the coming implosion of our society
democrat or republican, makes no difference anymore, we live in 1984, and war is peace
I wish the Nobel Society would take back their prize, publicly.

We love wars too much! Or at least the M$M/MIC does...or did we suddenly bring all our troops home? Didn't think so.

$649 billion is obscene and proof that America is falling apart.

bombs n guns

bombs n guns

bombs n guns

bombs n guns

bombs n guns

bombs n guns

bombs n guns

bombs n guns

I would add on to that:

How much do we spend on Homeland Security
How much do we spend on the CIA
How much do we spend on the FBI
How much do we spend on the Secret Service
How much do we spend on Immigration
How much do we spend on police in this country
How much do we spend on Border Patrol

Add these also to come to a truer cost of defense of this country

who just can't get enough $$$$ while others are getting evicted and living in tents. you would think the Dems would stand up for The People - but they don't. they are what republicans used to be in the 70's. we can not vote our way out of this. things will have to reach the point of revolution i'm afraid.

If we had a functioning Media, the politicians could never pull this off. But the Media was bought out lock-stock-and-barrel a long time ago. DC manufactures these crises to gut our Democracy piece by piece. It's called Shock Doctine, kiddos.