Saturday, January 31, 2009

RED ALERT: A trillion in pork, but Pentagon must cut 11%!


UPDATE 02/02/09 8:40PM ET: ACE OF SPADES REPORTS THAT OBAMA MAY INCREASE THE DEFENSE BUDGET BY 8%.

BUMPED AND UPDATED 01/31/09 04:38PM: SEE RUNNING UPDATES BELOW. MEDIA BLACKOUT: still not a peep out of the mainstream media (other than Fox News).

BREAKING 01/30/09 7:41PM ET
: Fox News Television reports that Barack Obama has issued a demand that the Pentagon reduce its budget by more than 10%
. The dollar figure is $55 billion.

President Obama wants to spend a trillion dollars on welfare, condoms, international STD prevention, 600,000 new government jobs and handouts for illegal immigrants... but negative funding for the very mission his Presidential Oath required.

Americans will die, needlessly, if this man gets his way.

Overreach? He's already pulled his arm out of its socket.

Here are the phone numbers for every U.S. Senator. Call now and demand -- with as much polite-itude as you can muster -- that they speak out against both the Porkulus package and this outrageous attempt to weaken America.

Update: Connie B. noted that the requested budget cut is just "a start"!

Update II: First mainstream media outlet to report appears to be InsideDefense (subscription) (hat tip: Ace): "'Substantial' Cut to FY-10 Budget Plan; Pentagon to Appeal"

Update III: Tommy emails: "We're all dead men walking."

Update IV: Iran. Nukes. Operation Starfish.

Update V: Via Reuters, Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI) says that long-range U.S. antiballistic missile system should be scaled down as part of a belt-tightening.

Update VI: Inside Defense: "[T]he Obama administration has directed Pentagon officials to pare back its original FY-10 topline proposal."

Update VII: Fox News headline (1/30/09 23:30): "Defense Official: Obama Calling for Defense Budget Cuts":

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.

Some overall budget figures are expected to be announced Monday.

Obama met Friday at the White House with a small group of military advisers, including Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Gen. James Cartwright, vice chairman, and Gen. Jim Jones, National Security Council chairman.

Update VIII: Let's do the math. The Porkulus package includes:

$314 BILLION IN PAYOFFS TO DEMOCRAT CONSTITUENCIES

• $83 billion in welfare payments (the earned income credit for people who don't pay income tax)
• $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

BUT NOT A PENNY FOR DEFENSE

Update IX: Cold Fury, Environmental Republican, Gateway Pundit, Hot Air, Jawa, Jerome Corsi at WND, Just Barking Mad, SondraK, STACLU, TAB, Tammy Bruce, Texas Scribbler, One Big Dog, American Elephant ("Obama Slashes Defense to Pay-Off Unions and ACORN"), Riggword ("How 'bout stimulating the military?"), Blackshards, United Conservatives and Wizbang have updates.

Update X: As of 10:02AM, no mainstream media outlets -- other than Fox News -- are reporting on this debacle. Although the wheezing New York Times ("Obama Cultivates Military") and the Philadelphia Inquirer ("Army announces rise in suicide rates for 2008") found time to report on more important issues this morning.

Update XI: As of 10:26AM, an AP (via Yahoo News) headline reads "Under Obama, `war on terror' catchphrase fading."

Update XII: At 11:01AM, Reliapundit noted: "LOOK AT IT THIS WAY: EVERYTHING IN THE BUDGET IS GETTING A 35% RAISE - EXCEPT DEFENSE, WHICH IS BEING CUT --- WHILE WE'RE AT WAR!"


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