Donna Cassata of ABC News reports that the House Defies Pentagon on Defense Spending.
The House ignored White House threats to veto their bill and authorized $495.8 billion for the core defense budget, $17.9 for energy programs, and $79.4 billion for the war in Afghanistan.
The House defied the Pentagon on Thursday, overwhelmingly backing a $601 billion defense authorization bill that saves the Cold War-era U-2 spy plane, military bases and Navy cruisers despite warnings that it will undercut military readiness.
A White House veto threat — reiterated just hours before the vote — had little impact in an election year as lawmakers embraced the popular measure that includes a 1.8 percent pay raise for the troops and adds up to hundreds of thousands of jobs back home. The vote was 325-98 for the legislation, with 216 Republicans and 109 Democrats backing the bill.
Most notably, the Senate panel "created a path to close Guantanamo," said the committee's chairman, Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., a long-sought goal of President Barack Obama. Under a provision of the bill, the administration would have to produce a comprehensive plan for transferring terror suspects from the U.S. naval facility in Cuba that would be subject to a congressional vote.
In addition to the fact that the House ignored the Pentagon's proposed elimination of obsolete weapons systems to pay for improved troop benefits, the White House likely objected to the House's provision authorizing the military to train and equip Syrian rebels loyal to President Bashar Assad.
The Democratic Representative Adam Smith deserves praise for standing up for principle and complaining that the House rejected the Pentagon's proposed budget cuts but proposed none of their own.
The White House threatened to veto the bill which also includes restrictions on President Obama's ability to transfer prisoners out of Guantanamo.
The Pentagon wanted to drop the obsolete U-2, and A-10, cut back on AWACs, and take 11 Navy cruisers out of normal rototation for modernazation so it could increase spending on health care and housing for troops, but this would have come at the expense of arms manufacturers in congressional districts, one thing that both parties strongly support. The House put all of the unneeded and unwanted weapons back in the budget in an obscene payola to arms dealers in their districts.
The total and complete hypocrisy of both parties was on display as the house rejected the Pentagon's request to cut obsolete weapons systems and rationalize Navy ship rotations in order to improve troop benefits so that congress critters could preserve defense spending to defense contracters in their districts - one of the few issues Republicans and Democrats can agree on. While at the same time we are slashing spending on social programs and refusing to close loopholes on corporate taxes and those fore the very rich. This one reason congressional approval is somewhere ariund 11%.
What a disgusting shame.
The only possible good that come from this travesty would be if, right now, every kog, any journalist, and every American, will take an oath to ourselves, that if any politician should ever again make any claim to be concerned about balanced budgets, fiscal responsibility or any other nonsense of the sort they keep spouting off about, and they then should suggest any further cuts should be made made to social programs and safety nets rather than to the bloated military budgets stuffed with worthless crap like this for their campaign contributors, instead of closing tax loopholes for the rich and corporations, you will burst out laughing, saying "you are joking right?" And hand them this article which you will keep a laminated copy of in your purse or wallet at all times.
8:32 AM PT: May I ask if we have any kogs in the house who know how to use our DKOS Diary editor from an IPad? I spilled a cup of water on my PC keyboard this morning so entered this post on my IPad which seems fairly straight forward except for moving blocks of text around. So I've been rewriting paragraphs I need to move around. It's making me a lot more succinct. Thanks -HD
8:58 AM PT: Thanks to InAntalya who noticed the odd wording in this article of the House bill supporting funding to rebels supporting Syrian rebels supporting Assad. Reuters has it correct which is that the bill support rebels fighting extremist rebels, and Assad. Until I can figure out how to use the cut and paste function in the IPad I can;t bring u the link. Sorry.