The Joint Strike Fighter, why?
BTW, this budget doesn't even include spending in Iraq or Afghanistan, so cutting military spending within it is not tatamount (tatamount?) to cutting our troops off.
Is there a breakdown anywhere (a link or something) of what the increases consist of, if they don't include Iraq or Afghanistan?
I'll try to find something, but I know it doesn't include Iraq and Afghanistan. Just like last year, that will be presented as a supplement to the budget after the actual budget is passed. That in itself is another issue that makes people groan, because it doens't report the true budget.
I'm looking too, but I can't find anything.
That seriously doesn't make sense....I'd get fired for presenting a budget like that.
http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Feb2...0207budget.pdf
Thats the acutaly DOD budget breakdown.
and here is an article on the budget supplement.
Bush administration planning supplemental war budget for 2006
By Lisa Burgess, Stars and Stripes
Pacific edition, Tuesday, February 8, 2005
ARLINGTON, Va. — The Bush administration is taking the same approach to defense spending in fiscal 2006 it began with the 2004 budget: presenting a “baseline” request to Congress that is only slightly different from the previous year, but adding billions more with a supplemental request to cover operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Congressional Democrats have been critical of the Bush administration’s ongoing use of supplementals to fund the war, saying the requests make it easier for defense officials to avoid congressional oversight of war spending and play a s game with defense spending.
Since Sept. 11, 2001, Congress has approved $203 billion in supplemental requests. If the latest request is approved, that goes up to $280 billion.
But defense officials defend the practice, saying that the security situation in Iraq, especially, is so unpredictable that using the regular budget to fund the operation would be too restrictive.
Because supplemental requests are put together much more quickly than regular budgets, defense officials said they have more flexibility to move and add money as conditions on the ground change.
“We are bearing, clearly, the heavy burden in this war,” a senior Army budget official said Friday. “The base budget would not allow us to mobilize our forces.”
“We can be more accurate in our estimates,” another official added. “It’s not hiding anything.”
Some analysts disagree.
“The war is not a surprise anymore,” said Steve Kosiak, a top analyst for the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessment in Washington. “We know we’re going to be there. Not [budgeting] for war costs is really inexcusable at this point.
“This administration came into office saying they would not play all these games with supplementals, but they’ve crossed the line, I’d say,” he said.
The supplemental request will pay for all the costs associated with Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom, including the salaries of an additional 18,000 active-duty soldiers who are now on the payroll; the cost of refurbishing equipment lost or worn out in Iraq and Afghanistan; the ammunition expended by U.S. troops in those countries; and equipping, housing, feeding and entertaining deployed troops.
But the supplemental also will pay for more than just direct war costs. Army officials are counting on receiving $5 billion in the upcoming request to create and equip three new combat brigade teams — the service’s new self-sufficient, lighter, high-tech “transformational” unit with about 4,000 soldiers.
Paying for the three new brigade combat teams in the supplemental is kosher, an Army official said, even though the units will be a permanent part of the Army, not just something cobbled together in response to the Iraq or Afghanistan operations.
“These are forces we are deploying to the battle space,” the official said. When Army units return from Iraq rotations, “we are resetting them [as BCTs] to go right back into the war.”
http://www.estripes.com/article.asp?...&article=27053
It allows politicians to play a game of sort. They can say "we're only increasing the budget by blah blah or we're cutting the budget by blah blah" into soundbites at this time of the year, but in reality the budget is much higher because of the 2 major operations in the middle east.I'm looking too, but I can't find anything.
That seriously doesn't make sense....I'd get fired for presenting a budget like that.
Well, while the business is owned by my mom and pop, those are exactly the types of contracts we do. It was our cranes that were used to build the Stealth Bomber.There are huge amounts of spending going on for programs such as the F22, B2, JSF (I'm mostly familliar with the avaition portion of it) as well as missle defense.
These programs that get cut hurt our business which I why I can't agree with you. I respect your opinion, though.
thats a risk of doing business with a government. it is still named the department of defense not the department of full employment and infinite contracts.
Maybe so, but you see it one way and I see it another. We'll just have to agree to disagree.
It's also fascinating that he leaves out, in his budget, the cost to privatize Social Security, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, OR the cost of keeping his tax cuts permanent. Why? Well, if you include those, the tagline that they'll cut the deficit in half by 2009 will no longer be true (even though if those 3 things happen, it won't be true anyway).
That's my two cents. Now I'll put a sock in it.
Well, spending cuts need to come from somewhere...
A note on Bush's pledge to cut the deficit in half, which I find humorous. The administration is saying that they will succeed in cutting it in half if they get the deficit to somewhere around $280 billion by 2009. They base "success" on cutting the projected 2004 deficit from earlier this year in half... when it was projected at $560 billion or so. The actual deficit for 2004 is actually going to be something like $480 billion... but that isn't the number they are going to cut in half... its the $560 (which never occurred) that they are cutting in half.
I don't really care, I just think its a funny little factoid. They could have projected the defecit at $960 billion and then they'd already have the mission accomplished.
But... back on topic. I've been ing about Bush's fiscal policy since the day it s ed looking like a college kid's first credit card activity. I like that he is finally showing SOME retraint, although I think it's just politics. Spending is increasing overall and at a faster pace than any gauge of inflation I might add.
I still see a dangerous recipe for stagflation in America, even if I'm the minority in doing so. Trade deficits will continue to eat away at GDP (the trade deficit reduced GDP growth by 1.7 percentage points in 2004), consumer sentiment and spending have been shaky the last few data points, and rising interest rates could put a damper on corporate debt financing. In the near to intermediate term, Government spending will likely remain the key driver of GDP growth (not a good thing!). Recession probability, while still well below 50%, is increased, in my opinion.
On the flation side of stagflation, there is decreased demand for money, both in the domestic markets and the internation markets (demonstrated by the dollar's plunge). Most telling, however, is the growth of money supply (any series will work for those interested in doing some fact checking/further research - M2 is the common method though). Empirical studies have shown that money supply growth is the variable with the highest correlation to inflation- and the money supply has been growing at a healthy clip in the last year.
While I lean towards continued economic growth over recession, my own inflation estimates are higher than consensus (new Blue Chip Economic Indicators just came out today - consensus GDP Price Index was around 2.0% for 2005), I'd put it in the mid 3's.
That's definetly true, and if I'm going to stay true to being the libertarian I say I am, I should be supporting government cuts.
And the truth is, I do. I think we shoudl definetly work torwards having a society with much less government involvement, but I think we should do so at a pace which isn't wreckless. I don't think that's the case here for a zillion reasons, but that's the the point I'm trying to make in this thread.
I do feel the way the cuts are handed out is very indicative of the personality of America and this administration as a whole, and I hate that. That's my main beef.
As to the economic portion of your post, I am pretty much as a loss, but I'll try to understand it tomorrow when I reread it. I promise nothing, but I usually am willing to trust your judgement in that area.
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