Obama Slashes Defense to Pay-Off Unions and ACORN

Obama Slashes Defense to Pay-Off Unions and ACORN by American Elephant

January 31, 2009, 8:12 pm
Filed under: Democrat Corruption, Foreign Policy, Military, News the Media Doesn't Want You to Hear, Terrorism | Tags: defense, Liberal lies, Weak on Defense

Barack Obama wants us to mortgage our future to the tune of $1.1 trillion dollars for a “stimulus” bill that will do nothing to stimulate the economy but a great deal to line the pockets of liberal interest groups and make Americans dependent on Democrat-led big government. Unions, ACORN, environmental groups, Hollywood…. the bill reads like a laundry list of give-aways to liberal special-interests and big socialized government.

But while the sky is the limit when it comes to buying a permanent Democrat majority,  news came down late Friday night  that Obama has found some massive spending cuts he is willing to make. In the midst of two wars, an erstwhile worldwide offensive against terror, and increasing aggression by the most dangerous regimes around the world, Barack Obama has directed the joint chiefs to slash military spending by over 10 percent:

The Obama administration has asked the military’s Joint Chiefs of Staff to cut the Pentagon’s budget request for the fiscal year 2010 by more than 10 percent — about $55 billion — a senior U.S. defense official tells FOX News.

Last year’s defense budget was $512 billion. Service chiefs and planners will be spending the weekend “burning the midnight oil” looking at ways to cut the budget — looking especially at weapons programs, the defense official said. [read more]

Naturally, since the Dear Leader signaled he is trying to hide this move by ordering the cuts on a weekend, everyone but FOX News has refused to even cover the story.The same way the MSM refused to cover this video. Even when Obama later made ridiculous claims in the general election that his approach to national defense would differ little from John McCain’s.

Of course at $55 billion, the defense cuts still don’t come close to paying for his “stimulus” bill.  But look on the bright side — with leadership like this, perhaps our children won’ t even be here when the massive bill comes due for Obama and the Democrats’ reckless agenda.

(h/t Gay Patriot)

Update: Ed Morrisey nails it:

I’m not going to argue that the defense budget doesn’t have fat.  I’ve seen defense contracting from the inside, and it stinks.  However, unlike the Obama stimulus bill that will cost more than twice as much as the 2010 defense budget, it’s not 90% fat.  Director Blue reminds us of a few numbers:

• $83 billion in welfare payments
• $81 billion for Medicaid
• $66 billion on “education”, more than the entire Department of Education required just ten years ago
• $36 billion for expanded unemployment benefits
• $20 billion for food stamps
• $8 billion on “renewable energy” projects, which have a low or negative return
• $7 billion for “modernizing federal buildings and facilities”
• $6 billion on urban transit systems, dominated by unions and which, almost universally, lose money
• $2.4 billion for “carbon-capture demonstration projects”
• $2 billion for child-care subsidies
• $1 billion for Amtrak, the federal railroad that’s run in the red for 40 years
• $650 million for “digital TV conversion coupons” (on top of billions already spent)
• $600 million on new cars for government (added to the $3 billion already spent each year)
• $400 million for “global-warming research”
• $50 million for the National Endowment for the Arts

Obama’s busy expanding all of the rest of the government except for its primary, Constitutional mission: defending the nation. [read more]

Up-Update: Congressional Quarterly is now reporting that Obama has given the pentagon a $527 billion upper limit on spending, which, if correct, would mean up to an 8% increase in spending. We’ll have to wait and see what the final story is, but for now, just as I was willing to criticize him for slashing the defense budget, I will also praise him for doing the right thing if he does increase it.

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