Bush Budget Has $585 Billion for Defense in 2009

President Bush's budget for next year, sent to the Congress for debate on Monday, includes more than half a trillion dollars in basic defense spending, and another $70 billion to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and related operations, for about half of the year. VOA's Al Pessin reports from the Pentagon.

Under the president's plan, the Defense Department's budget increases about 5.5 percent, adjusted for inflation, compared to the current year. Defense Secretary Robert Gates offered a brief justification for the budget on Monday.

"The budget request provides the resources needed to prevail in current conflicts, while preparing the department for a range of challenges that our nation may face in the years ahead," said Robert Gates.....

source

That is A WHOLE LOT of money. Ive always believed that military spending should be at about 5%. This budget doesn't even account for the Iraqi and afghan wars.


And the below is a quote from wiki, which put the entire military spending for 2007 alone, to over 626 BILLION DOLLARS!

For 2007, the budget rose to US$439.3 billion.[1] This does not include many military-related items that are outside of the Defense Department budget, such as nuclear weapons research, maintenance and production (~$9.3 billion, which is in the Department of Energy budget), Veterans Affairs(~$33.2 billion) or the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (which are largely funded through extra-budgetary supplements, ~$170 billion in 2007).[2] Conversely, the military budget does allocate money for dual-use items, such as the development of infrastructure surrounding U.S. military bases. Altogether, military-related expenses totaled approximately $626.1 billion

And 2008 is what? 470 some odd billion dollars?

None of this accounts for black budget spending either.

Ive posted the below video a few times, and it is quite interesting. I think many of it is a lead up of "whats to come" in regards to the future. So I am going to share it. Its all Pentagon/DARPA material....the quotes...everything.

Google Video Link

(just in case the vid is not working)
video.google.com...




[edit on 13-2-2008 by West Coast]