rssObama Is Spending More on Defense Than Bush
Monday, February 01, 2010 at 3:16 pm
- 17 Comments
Below is the Pentagon’s presentation of the long-term budget picture. Why’s it going from Fiscal 2001 to Fiscal 2015? I don’t presume to know for sure. But the effect is clear: It’s immediately obvious that President Obama is proposing spending more, consistently, on defense — excluding the cost of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars — than did President Bush. That’s the blue bar — how much the Pentagon and the military services need outside of combat funding. If we’re just looking at the blue bar under the Obama era, you can see it continue its slight glide path upward.
The gray bar is for combat funding — Iraq and Afghanistan together. Robert Hale, the Pentagon comptroller, told a press conference that starting next fiscal year, the Pentagon is presuming for budgeting purposes that the wars will cost $50 billion, thanks to the Iraq drawdown. So if that’s the case, then it’ll take a grand total of four more budgets for the Obama Pentagon budget to outspend the final two Bush budgets when the big big costs of sustaining the 2007-8 Iraq surge is factored into the equation. It may be unfair to Obama to compare base budget growth to base-budget-growth-plus-war funding, but that’s the only way for Congressional Republicans to actually argue that Obama is cutting defense — and you know that’s an inevitable line of criticism. So when they say that, you can refer to this chart and know that the only way that line of argument can possibly be true is for us to continue pouring money down the sinkhole of Iraq. Because any way you slice it, that blue baseline funding bar is rising and rising.
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17 Comments
Comment posted February 1, 2010 @ 5:24 pm
But this message “does not compute” for trailerpark Republicans—they still think Obama raised their taxes: Beck told 'em so!!!
Comment posted February 1, 2010 @ 5:41 pm
[T]he Pentagon is presuming for budgeting purposes that the wars will cost $50 billion, thanks to the Iraq drawdown.
If true, would that be the first time any cost projection for the Pentagon had any resemblance to reality?
Comment posted February 1, 2010 @ 6:45 pm
They always project out for five years — it's known as the Future Years Defense Program.
Pingback posted February 1, 2010 @ 10:31 pm
[...] well less than to what we spend each month on our adventures in Afghanistan and Iraq. According to Spencer Ackerman, “Obama is spending more on defense than Bush.” The Pentagon will burn through $166 [...]
Trackback posted February 2, 2010 @ 12:02 am
Social comments and analytics for this post…
This post was mentioned on Twitter by TheDude0415: RT @attackerman: RT @TWI_news: Obama Is Spending More on Defense Than Bush http://bit.ly/amUxNV || UGH, we need to reduce Defense Budget now…
Comment posted February 2, 2010 @ 2:30 pm
Can you make the picture clickable (or growable).
Comment posted February 2, 2010 @ 7:30 pm
Can you make the picture clickable (or growable).
Pingback posted February 5, 2010 @ 12:40 pm
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by attackerman, polymath22, PostBourgie, Yvonne Sayres, cmetz and others. cmetz said: RT @TWI_news: Obama Is Spending More on Defense Than Bush http://bit.ly/amUxNV [...]
Pingback posted February 5, 2010 @ 11:55 pm
[...] 02/05/2010 at 10:54 PM · Filed under Uncategorized A quick snapshot of the trend in Defense spending and the entire article here [...]
Pingback posted February 12, 2010 @ 1:14 pm
[...] I could cite other examples of the painful economic realities now confronting the U.S. arts community, but I think the dimensions of the crisis are understood. However, a discussion of government arts funding cannot take place as if it were unrelated to larger issues. It should be emphasized that while President Obama is cutting funding for the arts, he is simultaneously making significant increases in military spending, in fact, the Pentagon’s own statistics show Obama is now spending more on the military than did former President Bush. [...]
Pingback posted February 16, 2010 @ 4:47 am
[...] Obama Is Spending More on Defense Than Bush « The Washington … [...]
Comment posted May 22, 2011 @ 3:25 pm
Only $18 billion for NASA, which could provide REAL security for the human race by building bases on the Moon, rather than useless military bases in 100 countries, including our allies such as Italy and Germany. We need to redirect the International Military Industrial Complex (IMIC) towards space exploration while we still have money. When the US goes broke, the IMIC (Boeing, Lockheed, Halliburton, etc.) will go to China and Russia. Military spending creates fear and enemies. Space spending creates admirers and friends of America.
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