Shame on the House Democrats: $6.9 billion in Military Pork

(Update 7/31/09: Tom Barnett commented on the same NY Times article, saying (here):

Obama should veto the defense bill. It is a horrible example of Dem. leadership in Congress: they simply aren't herding the cats well.

Pork barreling at its best: robbing the taxpayer AND the warfighter (who will see resources gobbled up by huge platforms he does not need).

Plenty of shame to go around... )

I thought we voted for change. Now the House Democrats give us more military pork. Shame on them. Especially those on the Appropriations Committee. Let’s see how the Oregon House delegation votes.

The Defense Department budget is coming up for a floor vote as the Washington Post story “House Seems To Be Set on Pork-Padded Defense Bill” by R. Jeffery Smith (here) reports:

The Democratic-controlled House is poised to give the Pentagon dozens of new ships, planes, helicopters and armored vehicles that Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates says the military does not need to fund next year, acting in many cases in response to defense industry pressures and campaign contributions under an approach he has decried as "business as usual" and vowed to help end.

The unwanted equipment in a military spending bill expected to come to a vote on the House floor Thursday or Friday has a price tag of at least $6.9 billion….

….House appropriators want to buy, for example, extra C-17 transport planes and F-18 jets, as well as four extra military jets used by lawmakers and Pentagon VIPs. And they want to keep alive a troubled missile-defense interceptor program and continue the troubled VH-71 presidential helicopter program…..

…..Roughly $2.75 billion of the extra funds -- all of which were unanimously approved in an 18-minute markup Monday by the House Appropriations Committee -- would finance "earmarks," or projects demanded by individual lawmakers that the Pentagon did not request. About half of that amount reflects spending requested by private firms, including 95 companies or related political action committees that donated a total of $789,190 in the past 2 1/2 years to members of the appropriations subcommittee on defense, according to an analysis by Taxpayers for Common Sense, a nonprofit watchdog group.

Just reallocating the noted $2.75 billion in defense earmarks to high school and college study abroad programs could fund 275,000 high school and college students studying abroad for one year at $10,000 each. We need our next generations skilled in foreign languages and knowledgeable of foreign customs and markets more than those wasted earmarks. It would boost our national security and economic development.

Comments

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I thought we voted for change. Now the House Democrats give us more military pork. Shame on them. Especially those on the Appropriations Committee. Let’s see how the Oregon House delegation votes.

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Just reallocating the noted $2.75 billion in defense earmarks to high school and college study abroad programs could fund 275,000 high school and college students studying abroad for one year at $10,000 each

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not request. About half of that amount reflects spending requested by private firms, including 95 companies or related political action committees that donated a total of $789,190 in the past 2 1/2 year

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House appropriators want to buy, for example, extra C-17 transport planes and F-18 jets, as well as four extra military jets used by lawmakers and Pentagon VIPs

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The unwanted equipment in a military spending bill expected to come to a vote on the House floor Thursday or Friday has a price tag of at least $6.9 billion