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Under mounting pressure to rein in mammoth budget deficits, President Obama will propose in his State of the Union address a three-year freeze on federal funding that is not related to national security, a concession to public concern about government spending that could dramatically curtail Obama's legislative ambitions.
The freeze would take effect in October and limit the overall budget for agencies other than the military, veterans affairs, homeland security and certain international programs to $447 billion a year for the remainder of Obama's first term, senior administration officials said Monday, imposing sharp limits on his ability to begin initiatives in education, the environment and other areas of domestic policy.
A vital element in keeping the peace is our military establishment. Our arms must be mighty, ready for instant action, so that no potential aggressor may be tempted to risk his own destruction.
Our military organization today bears little relation to that known by any of my predecessors in peacetime, or indeed by the fighting men of World War II or Korea.
Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United States corporations.
This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence -- economic, political, even spiritual -- is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the militaryindustrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.
The pie chart below is the government view of the budget. This is a distortion of how our income tax dollars are spent because it includes Trust Funds (e.g., Social Security), and the expenses of past military spending are not distinguished from nonmilitary spending. For a more accurate representation of how your Federal income tax dollar is really spent, see the large chart (top).
If he meant this at all, he would immediately take all the remaining TARP Funds and pay them towards the debt. I don't think many will fall for this. The media he controls will pretend to not realize this, but those who are paying attention will not.
According to a new Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report, the money sought by the Defense department as well as President Barack Obama's 2010 budget -- which excludes money for ongoing war efforts -- would outpace Reagan's defense spending at its peak.
CBO Director Douglas Elmendorf wrote in a blog post that the Defense department's proposed budget would require some $573 billion in spending per year between 2011 and 2028. That request is seven percent more than what Obama requested in his administration's regular 2010 budget.
"The projection also exceeds the peak of about $500 billion (in 2010 dollars) during the height of the Reagan Administration’s military buildup in the mid-1980s," Elmendorf explained. "During that period, for example, DoD was pursuing a Navy fleet of 600 battle force ships, more than twice the size of the current fleet of 287."
Originally posted by Blaine91555
All he is proposing is freezing Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
But it would exempt the Pentagon, foreign aid, Veterans Affairs and homeland security budgets, as well as the entitlement programs that make up the biggest and fastest-growing part of the federal budget: Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.
Originally posted by Benevolent Heretic
Originally posted by Blaine91555
All he is proposing is freezing Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
I don't think so, Blaine. Those three are exempt:
But it would exempt the Pentagon, foreign aid, Veterans Affairs and homeland security budgets, as well as the entitlement programs that make up the biggest and fastest-growing part of the federal budget: Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.
Source
Originally posted by Mak Manto
I think our defense is too important to cut spending. That plays a pivotal role in protecting our country.
Originally posted by Sean48
Originally posted by Mak Manto
I think our defense is too important to cut spending. That plays a pivotal role in protecting our country.
According to the Official Story.
It only takes 20 bucks worth of box-cutters to beat the defences.
Originally posted by Zosynspiracy
reply to post by Mak Manto
Our security? What security? Our southern border is WIDE OPEN! If a bunch of two bit drug dealers can build tunnels to ferry drugs through right under our noses what makes you think some well funded intelligent terrorists can't smuggle bombs and suit case nukes through our border with Mexico? And don't think for a second Mexican drug dealers are above working together with Muslim extremists. Our country is NOT more secure because we have 700 bases in 100 countries. If our country wanted to worry about protecting its citizens we would seal the southern border and arm it with Marines.
[edit on 26-1-2010 by Zosynspiracy]
I think our defense is too important to cut spending. That plays a pivotal role in protecting our country.
CorpWatch wrote in 2003, George P. Schultz, Bechtel board member,
"used his political connections to lobby on behalf of a military invasion of Iraq. Bechtel received a request to bid on the reconstruction of Iraq before the invasion even began in a secret, undemocratic process. The contract itself has still not been seen by the Congress, much less the American public. Bechtel has once again used its revolving door to benefit itself and its friends at the expense of the majorities of the world's people and the planet."
says Craun.
"These aren't insurgents that we're brutalizing,"Capt. Bill Craun is one of four former Custer Battles employees in an NBC report that allege civilian contractors used such unrestrained force in Iraq, they had to quit soon after because of disgust.
"It was local civilians on their way to work. It's wrong."Craun said referring to subcontracted local youth shooting the place up.
"What we saw, I know the American population wouldn't stand for,"