Obama Defense Budget Calling For 5 Times China's Spending Blasted As Weak By GOP Lawmakers

Bloomberg:

Republicans and President Barack Obama are squaring off again over federal spending, only this time the president wants to cut it and the Republicans want to increase it.

Read the whole story at Bloomberg

Comments

[DocturT]

04:13 PM on 05/22/2012

Republicans only worry about that pesky deficit thingy when it's time to fund social programs. Or when a Democrat is in the white house

[Micheal Frisbie]

03:01 PM on 05/22/2012

Republicans and President Barack Obama are squaring off again over federal spending, only this time the president wants to cut it and the Republicans want to increase it. ... now this is the real money trail currently driving politcs and the republican super pacs.

[teatwerp]

12:06 PM on 05/22/2012

trills here desperate because they know president O will win a second term handily. continue to eat yourselves alive.

[Conservative Crusader]

12:00 PM on 05/22/2012

“So Mr. Obama, you’re telling me to strike a deal with the Taliban when you can’t even reach an agreement with the Republicans.”

- Afghan President Hamid Karzai

A note from my attorneys: This is not a real quote

[joekel]

12:31 PM on 05/22/2012

And you are not an intelligent poster.

[CognitoErgoSum]

12:04 AM on 05/23/2012

Maybe the Taliban are more reasonable than today's Republicans. Sad, isn't it.

[Arthur Spooner]

11:19 AM on 05/22/2012

Why do Republicans hate efficiency?

[Bettaman]

11:11 AM on 05/22/2012

Wake up America - the Repubs are TERRIBLE for our economy. They always have been and they always will be. 7 of our last 9 recessions have occured under Repub control. Do you really want to go back to more Bushcrap? No thanks!

[Jarrod Putnam]

12:46 PM on 05/22/2012

Indeed. Im still awestruck that the US public hasn't physically removed Republicans from their political system. In a hundred years, im willing to bet that the history books will ask, "Were Republicans of this era trying to destroy the country?". It seems only a handful (if that) of Republicans are actually mentally competent. Your average Joe with no political experience could run things better than Republicans have lately.

[Bettaman]

01:57 PM on 05/22/2012

Very well said, indeed!

[nkurland]

11:09 AM on 05/22/2012

We could easily roll the Pentagon budget back to the Clinton era 3% of GDP with no noticeable consequences.

Does anyone really think missile defense or the maintenance of 700 overseas bases enhances are security in any meaningful way?

[Bettaman]

11:12 AM on 05/22/2012

Not for a second.

[Arthur Spooner]

11:07 AM on 05/22/2012

" Obama has proposed reducing the defense budget by 4.9 percent from this year’s level. Though the Joint Chiefs of Staff backed the plan, House Republicans challenged their advice."

The standard line for Republicans is they will always follow the advice of the commanders on the ground. Except when it comes to spending. Republicans are running up the deficit while blaming it on the Democrats.
Conservative government is just organized hypocrisy.

Obama/Biden 2012

[Anita Maria Lopez]

11:06 AM on 05/22/2012

Defense cuts mess with the GOP's plan to attack Iran if they're elected. Plenty of money for wars, but let's cut social services to the bone. These chicken hawks would rather bomb a child than feed one.

[prettyinpink]

11:03 AM on 05/22/2012

Big Lies in Politics
By Thomas Sowell

The fact that so many successful politicians are such shameless liars is not only a reflection on them, it is also a reflection on us. When the people want the impossible, only liars can satisfy them, and only in the short run. The current outbreaks of riots in Europe show what happens when the truth catches up with both the politicians and the people in the long run.

Among the biggest lies of the welfare states on both sides of the Atlantic is the notion that the government can supply the people with things they want but cannot afford. Since the government gets its resources from the people, if the people as a whole cannot afford something, neither can the government.

There is, of course, the perennial fallacy that the government can simply raise taxes on "the rich" and use that additional revenue to pay for things that most people cannot afford. What is amazing is the implicit assumption that "the rich" are all such complete fools that they will do nothing to prevent their money from being taxed away. History shows otherwise.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2012/05/22/big_lies_in_politics_114231.html

[tonebender]

11:17 AM on 05/22/2012

Who exactly espouses these "lies" ?

[joekel]

12:33 PM on 05/22/2012

You use an opinion piece from a right wing loon - you are so desperate - thanks for the laugh.

[prettyinpink]

04:27 PM on 05/22/2012

Desperate is dragging up 40 year old hair cutting parties. 

[dfranz]

11:02 AM on 05/22/2012

Military spending has doubled since George Bush took office, most of it by him on two unfunded and poorly managed wars. Currently we spend more than the rest of the world combined on defense. The Air Force is being forced to take air craft it doesn't want and we are being billed absurd amounts of money by def3ense contractors supplying materials to the troops in foreign lands. Of course the GOP wants to spend more. Obsolete C-130s are being made in Alabama, so of course that program can't stop and we need the 200 plus foreign military bases in places like Germany and Japan because the old guard can't let go of WW2.

Until the Republicans really get serious about reducing the deficit and stop blaming social programs paid for by workers for our spending and insist on no new taxes while also insisting on massive tax breaks for billionaires, nothing that comes out of their pie holes means anything but politics.

[TiaJo]

10:55 AM on 05/22/2012

LOL. That's rich gNOp. Blasting the President as being a spender while blasting him for not spending enough on their chosen golden idol.

[nothingchanges]

10:50 AM on 05/22/2012

For the party that talks so much about the "founding fathers" the Republican leadership sure has a selective memory.

"Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few. In war, too, the discretionary power of the Executive is extended; its influence in dealing out offices, honors, and emoluments is multiplied: and all the means of seducing the minds, are added to those of subduing the force, of the people. The same malignant aspect in republicanism may be traced in the inequality of fortunes, and the opportunities of fraud, growing out of a state of war, and in the degeneracy of manners and of morals, engendered by both. No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare." James Madison

"“Standing armies [are] inconsistent with [a people’s] freedom and subversive of their quiet.”
Thomas Jefferson

Or how about article one of the Constitution?

"Congress may establish and support the armed forces, but no appropriation may be made for the support of the army may be used for more than two years"

[Guardianne]

11:32 AM on 05/22/2012

Thank you! Let's remember too Eisenhower trying to warn us about the "military-industrial complex."

[invmartyc]

10:38 AM on 05/22/2012

We spend more on "Defense" than the top five below us do all together! What is wrong with that picture? Are we that insecure that we have to spend ourselves, our children, etc into the poorhouse?

Of course the GOP wants to counter that with cuts to social security, medicare, and social programs. And give the rich tax breaks.

Fiscally consevative? NO! Corrupt GOP? Yes!

[Scott EngageAmerica]

10:29 AM on 05/22/2012

So, under Obama the federal budget deficit for this year will be $1.1 trillion (http://1.usa.gov/xju6K9). And, the one place he has finally decided to cut spending will effect our national security?

Surely, there has to be our places in the budget that can be cut that do not harm American's safety.

[TMF42]

10:34 AM on 05/22/2012

one could also argue that the budget should return to the levels before the Iraq war and once Afghanistan is done to go back to pre 9/11 levels.

Because terror attacks are not prevented by the military, but intelligence services.

[Bettaman]

11:09 AM on 05/22/2012

a 4.9% cut in defense will, in NO way, effect our national security. Stop with the drama, already....