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Senate Approves $636 Billion Military Spending Bill
WASHINGTON - The U.S. Senate approved a $636 billion military spending bill on Saturday that funds the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and also includes money to extend jobless aid and Medicare payment rates for two months.
US soldiers patrol in Nuristan Province on December 18. The US Congress has sent US President Barack Obama a massive annual military spending bill that funds current operations in Afghanistan and pays for the troop withdrawal from Iraq.
(AFP/File/Tauseef Mustafa) By a vote of 88-10, the Senate approved the bill and sent it to President Barack Obama to sign into law. The House of Representatives passed the bill on Wednesday.
The bill covers Pentagon operations through September 30, 2010. But the $128 billion approved for ongoing wars probably will not be enough to cover Obama's plans to send 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan.
The spending bill represents a partial victory for Obama and Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who had sought to eliminate unwanted weapons programs over the objections of lawmakers who see them as a source of skilled manufacturing jobs.
Congress eliminated funding for Lockheed Martin Corp's F-22 fighter jet, as Obama had requested.
But lawmakers funded 10 more Boeing Co C-17 transport planes than the Pentagon had asked for, at a cost of $2.5 billion.
Congress also kept alive over the Pentagon's objections the troubled VH-71 presidential helicopter, made by Lockheed, and an alternate engine for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter made by General Electric Co and Rolls Royce Group Plc.
Congress has now finished work on its spending bills for the fiscal year that started October 1. Those bills, which do not include expensive benefit programs or the $787 billion economic stimulus package passed in February, total 4.1 percent more than last year.
That is lower than the 7.5 percent annual increase over the past decade, thanks to the declining costs of the Iraq war. But Obama's Afghanistan troop increase is likely to erase those cost savings.
The bill includes 1,720 earmarks costing $4.2 billion for lawmakers' pet projects, according to the watchdog group Taxpayers for Common Sense. Obama has said he would like to eliminate earmarks, which have figured in several corruption scandals.
The bill also would extend a handful of unrelated programs that otherwise would expire at the end of the year, or have expired already.
Programs extended through February 28, 2010, include:
* Jobless benefits and health-insurance subsidies for the unemployed
* The antiterrorism USA Patriot Act, which gives law enforcement enhanced investigative powers
* Current reimbursement rates for doctors under the national Medicare health insurance program for the elderly, averting a 21 percent pay cut
* Current highway and transit programs
* Loosened regulations designed to encourage small business lending. The Small Business Administration will continue to waive or reduce its loan fees and back 90 percent of the loans it oversees
* A law that allows satellite television providers to retransmit broadcast-TV signals
(Editing by Peter Cooney)
40 Comments so far
Show AllCut Barack and the rest of DEMiserepublicans off at the bills. Obamasculate 'em!
Another case of holding domestic spending hostage unless more war spending is passed first. Could we get a link on who all actually voted for this bill? People need to know their war Senators.
JWV: here it is:
http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=111&session=1&vote=00384
(That website will get you every vote of House and Senate within minutes after it is taken.)
Note that only 1 of the 10 who voted against the bill(Feingold) was a Democrat; must make all those "progressives" proud to be Democrats! By the way, even Bernie Sanders voted for it.
The link you gave appears to be truncated. I'm not sure why it happens here. The last part of that link was "&vote=00384". I went to the site and was able to trace the exact bill though.
Sanders voting yes reminds me of my young distant friend who you had a conversation with a while back in another thread on ideological and party labels. It is bad enough that Democrats who call themselves "progressive" ruin a good word but it is even worse when someone who calls himself "independent" and "progressive" does it. She gets upset when not only this happens but when even hardboiled conservatives get no credit for doing the right thing. Can you believe that the staunchest conservative Republicans DeMint-SC, Burr-NC, Barrasso-WY, Coburn-OK, Enzi-WY, Johanns-NE, Mccain-AZ, Sessions-AL, and Thune-SD all voted against this monstrosity ? She was already thanking Coburn for asking that single payer be read all the way out loud. I can't blame her for feeling this way when politicians do the wierdest of things. Some staunch conservatives voting against military spending while most every progressive voting for it. No wonder she gets so upset and gets confused into thinking that maybe she isn't a progressive anymore.
I don't know why the link came through in that "truncated" form. I gave the full form you cite but it didn't copy that way on the web page; I even went back to "edit" after I posted and again sent the right post, but was again published truncated. Anyway, the thing to remember is that anybody can find any congressional vote almost as soon as it occurs by googling Thomas congress and selecting the choice that includes roll calls, going to the current session where the latest roll call is at the top of the page. Indispensable, I look at and post the link on my website after about every major vote.
As for the identities of those Republicans who voted against the defense appropriations bill, of course I noted too the irony of the most conservative Republicans voting against it. Since they undoubtedly cast their vote on grounds of "fiscal responsbility," this tells me that there's a dimension of anti-war sentiment that crosses from the liberal to the conservative side of the political spectrum (just as happened during the Viet Nam and was instrumental in the mass movement that propelled the war's end): that is, the sense that the war is too costly (not necessarily that it's wrong, it's just too expensive when we have other expenses to be concerned about.) Think of it as "smart" coalition-building: finding your allies where you find them on a particular issue, never mind they might disagree with you on others. Remember that most Americans are saying the Afghan conflict is "not worth it," and many are thinking in monetary and not moralistic terms. Kucinich is a good example of one whose rhetoric against war is right now focussed on its detraction from resources needed for domestic purposes, and this is why, in my opinion, the ever-opportunistic Pelosi seems willing to put "on the table" Kucinich's resolution on Afghan withdrawal. Some of Dennis's proposals I see as more symbolic than substantive but, stay tuned, this one may be the exception that could start a real groundswell toward some kind of "de-funding" of the Pentagon's military operations.
Well, why not? After all, what good is the U.S. if not to promote violence. Barack's latest pre-emptive Bushite activities:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/18/obama-ordered-us-military_n_397867.html#postComment
The Rolls Royce is towing the Yugo, untill it can ,gas up,in February? peace
Herewith, summarized by yours truly for quick perusing, an important set of data regarding the US occupation of Afghanistan, as those data are reported in the article by Jeremy Scahill ("Stunning Statistics") posted at CD yesterday:
Current total US force in Afghanistan: about 189,000
That force breaks down as follows:
US troops: 68,000
US contractors: 121,000
The period from June to September 2009 witnessed:
1) a 40% increase in Defense Department contractors in Afghanistan; and
2) an increase from about 5,000 to more than 10,000
armed private security contractors working for the Defense Department in Afghanistan.
Cost of contractors in Afghanistan since 2002 to US taxpayers: $23 billion
Senator Claire McCaskill's Contract Oversight subcommittee identified more than $950 million in questioned and unsupported costs submitted by Defense Department contracts for work in Afghanistan.
Despite the massive number of contracts and contractors in Afghanistan, oversight is utterly lacking and often people do not "know ... where the money is going."
Some people are profitting mightily from this darn war and the taxpayers are getting screwed all the way.
- funds the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan -
I suggest again to Progressives that instead of using the terminology of Reuters and the MIC, we use the terminology of the Progressives.
There is only the DAFT war. There is only the insane war to prevent future terrorism by our announced enemies al-Qaeda and the Taliban.
There is no war in Iraq. Do you see one? The war against Iraq ended in 2003. Now, there is only a 'friendly' occupation, with US soldiers staying in Iraq for 'counter-terrorism' against 'al-Qaeda in Iraq'.
The US soldiers in AfPak are fighting al-Qaeda and the Taliban.
If Progressives want to end the war, I sincerely and humbly ask them to try to end the right one. Otherwise, they are continuing to waste their valuable time.
End the DAFT war by repealing Public Law 107-40.
Barakus, your time is running out-- one term man,
AD
Once again the Democrats and the Republicans succumb to the allure of war while making sure that, for the most part, their sons and daughters do not have to fight in their wars. So much money being set aside, for the most part, to allegedly hunt down and kill less than 100 of these fearsome terrorists in Afghanistan but which, in reality, is slaughtering innocent brown civilians for no justifiable reason whatsoever. If these politicians had any type of moral compass they would resign from their positions forthwith.
"Presently, we have so many wars at the local, national and international levels because we have invested in the commodities of war. Not everyone wants peace; some people benefit economically from instability, insecurity, and warfare. Until we dismantle that and get to the root causes of why we have violent conflicts, we will not achieve peace."-Noeleen Heyzer [1948-], Singaporean executive director of the United Nations Development Fund for Women [UNIFEM]
"The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles. The master class has always had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and all to lose-especially their lives."-Eugene Victor Debs [1855-1926], American labor and political leader
"You can't say civilizations don't advance... for in every war they kill you in a new way."-Will Rodgers [1879-1935], American humorist and social commentator
http://www.addictedtowar.com/book.html
Where are the tea-baggers and deficit hawks?
With such a budget, we could have colonized Mars.
& sent our elected representatives? Please?
Doesn't it seem strange that congress gives a blank check and a rubber stamp to the war department and never a peep, about the deficits or that we cannot afford this punic use of our tax $! Congress with their sychophantic, psycho, Republican and Democratic Attorneys that support the racket of killing around the world and the comcomitant profits of the MIC never, never question these most egregious use of funds and have totally abandoned any fiduciary responsibility to the American people. The most ironic thing: we have little to fear from the xenophobia of foreigners and a lot to fear from the REAL TERRORISTS that are right here in the good ol U.S.A.
When this tragi-farce finally plays out, I believe all I'll see out of the deal is higher Medicare payments, lower Medicare benefits, and probably higher drug prices.
This is known in the media and politics of the USA as "reform."
Thugs, criminals, bastards & SOBs.
Sorry if I left anyone out.
You didn't leave anyone out. You just failed to clearly name who are these thugs, criminals, bastards and SOBs. They are are elected officials in the government. They are members of the Senate and the Congress of the United States. They are thugs, criminals, bastards and SOBs that must never be allowed to have another term in office. It is the duty of all the people to kick these corrupt thugs, criminals, bastards and SOBs out of office.
Can one cry and vomit at the same time? How utterly disgusting - not only the egregious expense for killing but also Congress' eagerness to (over-)fund it. And jumming various discrete programs together such that the gift basket contains smoked pork, C4, dog turds, cookies, and a hand grenade has that holiday touch.
It's so wrong to formulate and pass bills that contain such utterly different elements. I know this happens every year/all the time, but I'm thoroughly sickened and disgusted.
Gee, where the hell were all those anti-health-care-reform-because-we-can't-afford-it, deficit hawk, medicare-and-social-security-are-about-to-go-bust-plus-they-are-costing-us-too-much-already, fiscally-conservative, New-Deal-hating, tea-bagging blowhards when they took this vote? Bathroom break? Dozing off? Hearing aid broken? Fondling Larry Craig?
Note that Obama/Gates are claiming victory over the MIC because this obscenely-bloated-yet-not-enough-for-this-year's-Afghan-incursion budget represents a CUT from what the MIC wanted! Me think it be Bizarro World...
Yes, this is military spending. It is not defense spending. It is offense spending.
Here is a website(www.rethinkafghanistan.com then go to the videos) that gives a series of videos about the Afghanistan War.
After watching it, it seems that before another Afghan child loses their life in this travesty, the children or grandchildren, of the President, Senators, Representatives, and the Military command should watch these videos and tell their parents whether they think killing little kids is a worthy thing to do '..to ensure our nation's security'.
I may be going out on a limb here, but if American soldiers' children suffered the way these Afghan children suffered, they may rethink their pledge to kill, and the decision makers would rethink their authorizations to kill.
Fortunately I am not a US citizen so this is not about my taxes, never the less I am haunted by what Americans' tax money brings to the world:
From Amy Goodman and Democracy Now, yesterday 18.12.09, about the biginning of Obama's surge deployment to Afghanistan;
"On Thursday, the first Marine battalion deployed under the escalation left Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. Battalion member Lance Corporal Joseph Jones was asked about his mission.
Lance Corporal Joseph Jones: “This is what we do: kick down doors, and we look for people and shoot at people. This is what we do. This is what I signed up to do. I don’t know about everyone else.”"
This Americans is what you pay for. According to estimates, this man costs you a million dollars a year to be in Afghanistan. I'm sorry but I can only hope that.... well it would be nice if he could be educated above his present level of Neanderthal, but I doubt it is going to happen.
Once an American asked me, because of my German mother, "Where were the good Germans before the second world war?". I guess the answer is, same place as the good Americans are today!
Militarism is conjoined with patriotism over here. Everyone accepts the meme that "freedom isn't free"--a statement that is code for "obscene military spending is necessary." There are at least four holidays which exalt the flag and militarism: Veterans Day, Memorial Day, Independence Day, and Flag Day. Since the Second World War this country has been involved in five major conflicts: Korea, Vietnam, Gulf War I, Iraq, and Afghanistan and numerous interventions--Lebanon, Somalia, Panama, etc. On nearly every TV news broadcast there is a segment honoring veterans. There is no serious opposition to military spending in Congress or among the people. Enormous numbers of jobs connect directly to the military. We--America--are Sparta. We will experience much suffering here because of the values we have come to accept.
I agree with your last statement. The new good Nazi, Germans are the American sheeple that are just as politically brainwashed and ignorant as the German Nazi people were in the 1930's. Americas foreign policy is not much different than Nazi Germany's was before the 2nd World War. Obomba is the American Hitler that hypnotized the American electorate.
Let's see...300,000,000 people in the US divided into $639,000,000,000. That's $2120 each...Merry Xmas everybody.
The US launched more strikes against Yemen early today launching cruise missiles against two "suspect" Al Qaeda sites.
Yemen, Somalia, Pakistan, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan are all either invaded by the USA or being attacked by the same.
Meanwhile US troops are being sent into Colombia with Venezuala seen as the next taregt for "Liberation".
Just wars are breeding like Wild Fire with Nobel peace Prize Winning Barack Obama expanding war to all corners of the Globe for the sake of peace.
Merry Christmas.
This is sick
That would be 6.36 trillion over 10 years. That is the same 10 years that would cost 1.7 trillion for Single Payer universal Healthcare, if I'm not mistaken. The Health reform debate has gone on for so long that I have lost track of some figures. Why is it so easy to spend money to kill, maim and occupy but so very hard to spend money on the health and well being of Americans?
Endless war spending for the continued global dominance of the U.S. Empire brings mega-bucks to war profiteers and their lackeys in the White House and Congress, sends messages to everyone else around the world that you don't mess with the World's Most Powerful Don, and "employs" as soldiers or as mercenaries all those USA'ers who no longer have jobs here or are not incarcerated yet, especially for non-violent "crimes."
Single-payer health care, on the other hand, would eliminate most "health" insurance companies, and that would cut off another sure revenue stream to the Corporate Tools in Congress.
It's all about them, their re-election funds, and their bank accounts. It doesn't really matter to most of them how many die here from unaffordable health care or abroad from our wars for empire.
I wonder how much CO2 this 636billion dollars will generate?
if you drive an automobile that is not plugged in to a solar powered home you have no right to 'fuss' about an oil war.
If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem. People get on this board and whine about the 'oil war' but how many of them live in a home powered by coal and drive cars to work powered by oil?
you can post all you want on the internet and complain about evil President Obama fallowing in the foot steps of evil President Bush but if you are not actively reducing your carbon foot print, actively promoting green energy you are actively supporting war.
Any one who reads my posts knows who and what I am, I am not slagging and dogging people for being anti war, I doupt many of you are more anti war than I, after all I fight those wars. But when some one talks about the "war is just about oil" and then goes out side and gets in to a giant SUV it makes me angry on a level no one wants to know about.
I try to be green, as green as possible.
now do your part so that stupid stuff like Iran invading Iraq is meaningless.
If not I suggest you join the army and lend me a hand as I am fighting as people post " a war to support big oil "
Can you tell I am rather put out by a few people?
go Green Damn It!
There is no reason to fight a war to get oil so it does not follow that those who drive cars support a war for oil.
By the way this whole article is just hype. The IRAQI Government even claims no such incursion occurred.
"Afghanistan: World's Lengthiest War Has Just Begun"
by Rick Rozoff, Stop NATO, Dec 18, 2009
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=16618
EXCERPT:
The higher number of Defense Department contractors, 160,000, added to over 100,000 troops - with the likely prospect of both numbers climbing yet more - will result in over a quarter of a million U.S. personnel serving under the Pentagon and NATO. The latter has 42,000 non-U.S. troops fighting under its command currently and pledges of 8,000 more to date, with thousands in addition to be conscripted after the London conference on Afghanistan next month. Approximately 35,000 U.S. soldiers are also assigned to NATO's ISAF and if the 33,000 new American troops are similarly deployed the North Atlantic bloc will have over 120,000 forces fighting a land war in Asia. Along with a Pakistani army of 700,000 active duty troops fighting on the other side of the border and an Afghan army of 100,000 soldiers, there will soon be well over a million military personnel engaged in a war with a few hundred al-Qaeda and a few thousand Taliban forces.
END OF EXCERPT
Emphasis: "there will soon be well over a million military personnel engaged in a war with a few hundred al-Qaeda and a few thousand Taliban forces".
Ha ha ha ha .... Excuse my laughter, but this above description of the US and NATO is hilarious. This is a damn (and) RIDICULOUS war. It's of supreme international criminality, but it's also hilarious. What an extremely sick JOKE the leaders of the U.S. and NATO governments and militaries are. How the heck can citizens think these government and military leaders have any credibility ... whatsoever? How can citizens think these ... leaders deserve any respect ... whatsoever? They have NO credibility and deserve NO respect ... [whatsoever].
EXCERPT:
Despite U.S. President Barack Obama's pledge in his December 1 address at the West Point Military Academy that deploying 30,000 more of his nation's troops to Afghanistan would be coupled with "a goal of starting to withdraw forces from the country in July 2011," everything else he has said and all the facts on the ground suggest that the war will continue into the indefinite future.
At a press conference a week before the West Point troop surge announcement he said "it is my intention to finish the job," and in his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech on December 10 he affirmed: "We must begin by acknowledging the hard truth: We will not eradicate violent conflict in our lifetimes."
History establishes that it is easier to deploy to than to withdraw from an active war zone.
...
That number, likely to be increased yet further and accompanied by a veritable invasion of private military contractors and State Department operatives, will be augmented by over 10,000 more non-U.S. troops serving under the North Atlantic Treaty Organization-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), bringing combined American and NATO regular military forces to well over 150,000 and total Western personnel to over 300,000 with an estimated surge of as many as 56,000 new U.S. contractors. With the addition of assorted security, intelligence, private contracting and other military camp followers from NATO nations, the figure could top a third of a million.
An occupation and warfighting force of those dimensions is not designed for a limited mission or a short stay.
END OF EXCERPT
I definitely agree.
EXCERPT:
In fact on December 6 U.S. National Security Adviser James Jones (former top military commander for NATO in Europe) gave the lie to the 2011 withdrawal anodyne in an interview with CNN when he brashly asserted "We have strategic interests in South Asia that should not be measured in terms of finite times. We’re going to be in the region for a long time.”
Jones also emphasized the extension of the war in space as well as time by stating American reinforcements and redeployments would concentrate on eastern and southern Afghanistan to "eliminate the safe havens" inside Pakistan, a nation with a population of 175 million and nuclear weapons.
His claims, more authoritative than those of the president he serves, were echoed by Pentagon chief Robert Gates. ...
Gates in his own words: "This is a relationship forged in blood. We will see it [through] to the end." [1]
END OF EXCERPT
I definitely recommend reading the whole article, but will excerpt a little with respect to the "surge" in weapons the U.S. will be using.
EXCERPT:
The dramatic escalation of the war is also not limited to increases in personnel. The U.S. Defense Department recently announced that it was expanding the deployment of Stealth warplanes and high-altitude, long-endurance Reaper "hunter-killer" drones which are equipped with fifteen times more deadly missiles than its Predator predecessor. "[T]he Air Force is looking toward developing unmanned, long-range surveillance aircraft that also can carry warheads so they can be used during combat." [5]
The U.S. Air Force's latest stealth reconnaissance drone, dubbed "the Beast of Kandahar," resembles "the much larger, swept-wing B-2 Stealth bomber, and officials confirmed this month that the military has begun using the classified, unarmed drone in Afghanistan." [6]
EMD OF EXCERPT
In the rest of the article, he refers to numerous NATO countries and non-NATO countries aligned with the West, even if through arm-twisting, taking part in the war; as well as describing some of this arm-twisting. And he provides some details about the slightly over $630bn the US Congress has recently authorized, none of which is related to the 30,000 US troop surge, which requires an additional $30bn, for starters anyway. He likely provides some details on the ways the $630bn will be used that are not included in the above Reuters article, which I haven't yet read, but which is short.
He says, "Militarism is a psychopathology and war can be an addiction", which is evidently true. It's definitely about psychopathy, which I've said enough times since 2002 or early 2003. It's very easy to see that this is all psychopathic and that the psychopaths are evidently addicted certainly isn't difficult to realise, either.
Humanity is overruled by PSYCHOPATHS and corporatists, who are also psychopaths, violent sociopaths.
Have a lovely Christmas season.
Just remember that these forces arrayed against Al Qaeda include "The finest deadliest and best trained soldiers in the History of The World"
Now THAT has to be a multiplier factor.
Those few hundred Al Qaeda must be GODS.
Funny how when debating healthcare, increasing the budget becomes a major issue. Not so with the military budget. Voices are silent when it comes to this immoral spending.
When President Obama signs this bill which contains 183 billion for the "wars" in Iraq and Afghanistan the door should finally close on his lame excuses that he inherited these messy "wars" from his predecessor. The 183 billion dollars from Congress are once again a constitutional declaration by Congress to the President that he must execute these wars. When President Obama signs he not only accepts full responsibility for both wars but he thereby seals his fate. Signed and sealed.
War without end. Doublespeak: War is Peace. New World Order. Dissenters are traitors. Arbeit macht Frei.
This is Amerikkka. Uncle Bomb at the helm.
War is terrorism with a big budget ! It isn't just obomination and his fellow mass murder advisers or his fascist military...everyone of the spineless congress who voted for more BLOOD money ! Well, how did obomber and war criminal congress get into power ?
tioche, Mexico