Pelosi: Defense Pork Shouldn't Be Exempt From Spending Freeze

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi reiterated on Thursday that pork-laden Pentagon programs shouldn't be protected from President Obama's proposed three-year spending freeze -- a position that the White House distanced itself from on Wednesday after Pelosi made comments to that effect in an interview with Politico.

"While we all want to support our men and women in uniform... and our national defense and our veterans, I don't think that we should protect military contractors, and I want to make that distinction very clear," Pelosi said at her weekly press conference Thursday.

The government can't minimize wasteful spending without auditing the Pentagon, Pelosi said, citing a 2009 report indicating that top U.S. weapons programs went over budget by some $296 billion.

"I don't support exempting them from the freeze," she said. "So I think there has to be a bifurcation in terms of: we support our military and their families and we want them to have everything they need, but we do not support an entitlement program for overruns on the part of a military contractor."

Comments

[Wake-up]

06:36 PM on 01/28/2010

Watching Pelosi at these things is a reminder that she is just bazaar... Just look at the bad acting job, the twitches, like watching a crazy person, honestly.

So she tries today to sneak the HC thing through with this $300M slight-of-hand... raises the debit ceiling in Congress by ANOTHER $2 TRILLION and at the same time talks about freezing spending.

Honestly, am I the only one that understands the definition of crazy? This person is officially dangerous. She's off the reservation, lost it... blind... and she obviously thinks we're stupid.

[AtheistUS]

03:50 AM on 01/29/2010

Can you explain more about "ANOTHER $2 TRILLION" (with capsLock on your keyboard in calm position)?

Your suggestion "I the only one that understands the definition of crazy" should have given you a pause.

[Wake-up]

01:29 AM on 01/30/2010

Simple search: http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/78555-senate-agrees-to-raise-debt-ceiling-to-143t

[LeftRight]

05:43 PM on 01/28/2010

Considering that over 50% of the discressionary budget is defense spending (past and present) it's ESSENTIAL to cut the pork from that portion. In addition, the military budget is MORE likely to be full of pork than most of the rest of the budget!!!

[AtheistUS]

03:51 AM on 01/29/2010

Well said! Let's hope Pelosi means not only words.

[KrugnacTheMagnificent]

05:18 PM on 01/28/2010

Why is it that every time someone proposes spending cuts or spending freezes, they immediately tack on the "non-discretionary" exclusion? Sure, cutting Medicare is considered the third rail of politics, but it seems utterly ridiculous to do that now, after Dems just spent a full 12 months telling everyone that Medicare is wasting $500 billion over the next 10 years, that can easily be cut without impacting services.

If we can afford to cut it to pay for insurance reform, we can afford to cut it to help bring down the crushing deficits, especially as part of a larger spending freeze.

Obama said it was time to make tough decisions, and to spend out money on necessities first. That would naturally apply to the hundreds of billions of wasteful spending in Medicare, wouldn't it?

Why exclude it? Perhaps one of the reasons we have this huge amount of unnecessary and wasteful spending in Medicare in the first place is precisely BECAUSE it's always excluded from these sorts of exercises in purging waste, fraud, abuse, and underperforming programs from the federal budget.

[martinspringfield]

05:30 PM on 01/28/2010

LOL, yeah right. Medicare is the ONLY thing propping up our entire health insurance system now.

Pelosi is far more on target. We spend as much on military as all other nations in the world combined, and yet we cower before 19 refugees from the Bronze Age with box cutters.

We've spent $20 trillion on the military since WWII, and what do we have to show for it? We won the Cold War with the Marshall Plan and the Berlin Airlift, not deposing Mossadegh, Star Wars, invading Grenada, or invading Iraq.

We could save trillions with leadership and not the status quo of "defense spending".

[AtheistUS]

03:59 AM on 01/29/2010

Fanned.

Let's add also the sad fact that on the two Bush (or Bush-Obama) wars we spend in just one month as much money as annual budget of NSF.

[Inaru]

06:02 PM on 01/28/2010

News release today, O is increasing funding to crack down on Medicare fraud http://bit.ly/bJyfG3

True, Medicare's plagued with corrupt profiteering - remember the first episode of The Sopranos? Doctor drowning in poker debts with the thugs had to set up bogus charges to Medicare to pay Tony back - art imitates life. But you also neglect to notice (thank the pathetic MSM for that) that O has sent his Justice Dept after the frauds at a rate never attempted before, and slowly is succeeding in shutting down many of them and collecting fines to recoup losses.

Military contractor fraud and waste runs circles around Medicare fraud/waste, so now pls explain how Pelosi's statement is bad/untrue.

[tiredoldsteelworker]

05:15 PM on 01/28/2010

Not much chatter today....the minority true believers still believe and the majority made up their mind last night that the midterms need to get here a lot sooner.

[kkrimmer]

05:10 PM on 01/28/2010

$700 Billion for War OK
$700 Billion for Banks OK
$700 Billion for Weathiest OK
$700 Billion for Pentagon Every Year OK
$700 Billion for hard working average Americans NOT OK

Only a fool thinks there's much of a difference between parties, the last 20 years is proof.

Watch Moore's "Capitalism" -- shines a light on the darkness of both Republicans and Democrats...

Moore does not have a solution but I do.

National strikes. No one goes to work until Congress is completely retooled, special interests and lobbyists are removed from influence and campaign finance reform really happens.

[martinspringfield]

05:36 PM on 01/28/2010

While I agree with you in part, there are huge differences in the parties.

Start by looking at who balanced the budget, cut spending dramatically, reduced the size of government, and left surpluses. That was Democrat Bill Clinton. And oh yeah, he won an "unwinnable" war (so said the Republicans at the time) in 79 days with zero casuatlies. When the Midwest flooded, James Lee Witt's FEMA was able to respond and prevent the disasters the country had seen with Andrew in Florida - or later Katrina in NOLA. When it came time to commercialize the Internet, you can thank the tech gods that it was Al Gore directing things and not some clown installed by Pappy Bush - Ted Stevens probably.

Saying it doesn't matter who is running things is like saying it doesn't matter if Warren Buffet or Bernie Madoff is managing your money. "Pox on both their houses" is just not a realistic approach to picking your political poison.

[Berettasskeeter]

05:12 PM on 01/30/2010

What was the actual amount of surplus dollars in the treasury when Clinton left office?
Semper fi

[Inaru]

06:05 PM on 01/28/2010

Spoken like someone who doesn't need a paycheck. I'm glad for you, really.

[SteepleAston]

05:00 PM on 01/28/2010

A better idea is to cut national security spending by around 45% or so. End the "permanent war".

[ALCThomas]

04:43 PM on 01/28/2010

Like we really need to buy 795 F-22s and 1800 F-35s. For who and what? The closest "enemy" we are likely to face is China and now that they have tasted capitalism and a higher standard of living they aren't going to risk that buy trying to match us. They are putting their zillions into their economy and infrastructure while we borrow our zillions from them and buy weapons, fight wars, and ignore our own economy and infrastructure. Who in the Pentagon is going to stand up and say that we DONT need 50 new subs, 10 new aircraft carriers, a new tank, and 100000 more troops. And who in the Pentagon has the guts to admit that the war in Afghanistan is a lost cause and that we should shut down operations? Who will be the first to suggest that we bring home the 100000 troops still occupying Germany and Japan 65 years after they surrendered. Do we really need bases in every country on earth (except North Korea)? The Repubs talk about fiscal responsibility but ignore a huge part of our deficit problem. I won't even mention SS and Medicare.

[Berettasskeeter]

05:16 PM on 01/30/2010

You really should do some research into the motivations of dictatorships. China's rulers will do whatever it takes to maintain their power. Look at the TianAnMen massacre!
Semper fi

[Hankskool]

04:28 PM on 01/28/2010

Well, hey Nancy, it doesn't even need to be cut if Congress doesn't appropriate it in the first place. That's your scope of responsibility.

[KrugnacTheMagnificent]

05:20 PM on 01/28/2010

Spot on. She could have kept her 2006/2008 campaign promises to end the Iraq war, singlehandedly as Speaker, simply by choosing not to fund it in the first place.

But her promises were empty electioneering in the first place, so why bother, eh?

[fairandjust]

04:25 PM on 01/28/2010

"I don't think that we should protect military contractors, and I want to make that distinction very clear," Pelosi said at her weekly press conference Thursday."

Go Speaker Pelosi - cut that bloated War-Profiteering!

[ntmessage]

04:05 PM on 01/28/2010

I think the people want Pelosi to stop writing checks first. And THEN we can go after other departments. If she cannot agree to and keep a promise to freezing what is essentially 1/20th of the budget, after a 20% increase, 6x the normal, how can we keep trusting her with our money?

[MAHMAH]

04:02 PM on 01/28/2010

Pelosi knows a great deal about freezing. Just look at her face frozen in time.

[AtheistUS]

04:14 PM on 01/28/2010

Not a nice comment - about a face of a lady.

I think she looks lovely.

[MAHMAH]

04:55 PM on 01/28/2010

Too much KoolAid for you.

[devildog21]

03:58 PM on 01/28/2010

Ms. Pelosi, I have a suggestion that would result in nearly immediate reductions in defense spending.

Simply pass a bill that prohibits contractors from making a profit on defense contracts. They should certainly be willing to do this as their patriotic duty, but my guess is they will be pulling their lobbyists from Washington and ditching their contracts faster than you can say Uncle Fester.

[Fretchen]

05:05 PM on 01/28/2010

Let's also pass a bill that says businesses (mom and pop through too large to fails), banks, hospitals, doctors, farms, etc. are not allowed to make a profit. After all, it's their patriotic duty. Good luck finding a job when no one is allowed to make a profit.

[laocoon]

05:17 PM on 01/28/2010

they will just hide the profits in the guise of expenses. that is a typical income tax trick as well. contracts need real bidding and meaningful oversight.

[AtheistUS]

03:54 PM on 01/28/2010

During whole last year Pelosi has been a much more of a leader than Obama.

[devildog21]

04:06 PM on 01/28/2010

There may be an argument there, but she failed miserably in her first two years as Speaker when she refused to pursue impeaching the worst president in the history of our country when there was ample evidence of impeachable offenses.

[AtheistUS]

04:12 PM on 01/28/2010

I agree with that! But that's as far as dem elite can ever go, that's a shame.

Bush was certainly impeachable. He may well be worst in history. He is often compared with Buchanan and Hoover, but I think Bush is much worse.

[strangelet]

04:54 PM on 01/28/2010

Mmm, it's called votes. There's no way the House was going to impeach anybody -- yes, I know there was a nominal D majority, but far more than the majority were Blue Dogs. Notice how the Doggies vote on, say, health care? You think they would have voted to impeach?

And yes, I know that a handful (5) Democrats voted to impeach Clinton, but there were enough Republican votes to carry the impeachment even if every Dem had voted no.

And, ultimately, the effort would have been somewhere between pointless (absolutely no way in hell 67 Senators were gonna vote to convict) and counterproductive. While a majority of voters were demonstrably tired of Bushney, not all of them hated them. It's quite possible that right-ish independent voters would have come to see the Democratic Party as being petty and vindictive (in time of war, at that). You can bet the GOP would have been spinning that as hard as they could.

The only thing that would have led to a satisfactory outcome would be if the investigation turned up HARD evidence of impeachable acts, and given the ability of any administration to hide behind national security, I don't think the odds were very good. (Clinton should have gotten Monica a Top Secret clearance).

[novoorganum]

03:54 PM on 01/28/2010

Daily dose of Chomsky:

“Popular struggles have won a great many rights, but concentrated power and privilege clings to the Madisonian conception in ways that vary as society changes. By World War I, business leaders and elite intellectuals recognized that the population had won so many rights that they could not be controlled by force, so it would be necessary to turn to control of attitudes and opinions. Those are the years when the huge public relations industry emerged -- in the freest countries of the world, Britain and United States, where the problem was most acute. The industry was devoted to what Walter Lippmann approvingly called "a new art in the practice of democracy," the "manufacture of consent" -- the "engineering of consent" in the phrase of his contemporary Edward Bernays, one of the founders of the public relations industry. Both Lippmann and Bernays took part in Wilson's state propaganda organization, the Committee on Public Information, created to drive a pacifist population to jingoist fanaticism and hatred of all things German. It succeeded brilliantly. The same techniques, it was hoped, would ensure that the "intelligent minorities" would rule, undisturbed by "the trampling and the roar of a bewildered herd," the general public, "ignorant and meddlesome outsiders" whose "function" is to be "spectators," not "participa­­­­­nts." This was a central theme of the highly regarded "progressive essays on democracy" by the leading public intellectual of the twentieth century (Lippmann), whose thinking captures well the perceptions of progressive intellectual opinion.

Chomsky

[frankwatson]

03:47 PM on 01/28/2010

Here's a good website that illustrates with real numbers and facts why all government spending is wasteful and impossible to control!
http://luckybogey.wordpress.com/2009/10/13/public-sector-employment-the-gravy-train-robs-peter-to-pay-paul/

[devildog21]

04:09 PM on 01/28/2010

I assume you think this is a good website because it validates your narrow worldview, not because it has any actual relevance?

[strangelet]

04:55 PM on 01/28/2010

I think he means "Here's a ... website that illustrates with ... numbers....."

[Inaru]

06:15 PM on 01/28/2010

There are more contractors than employees in the pubic sector now, and not just in "Defense": http://bit.ly/brdSny Hey, frankwatson, do you anti-govt types just want a private military to run the country? 'Cause they'd be more than glad to.