With a vote set for high noon on Tuesday, the political tide in the Senate has shifted to now favor the White House and Pentagon in their pivotal fight to strike new procurement funds for the F-22 fighter.
Just last week, conventional wisdom held that the $1.75 billion authorization would easily survive a challenge on the floor. But fearful of embarrassing President Barack Obama, Democrats appear to be moving back toward the White House, which has mounted its own late-breaking campaign to win the last votes.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates is the public point man for the administration, making calls to senators and delivering a toughly worded speech last week in Chicago. But as the political stakes have become more evident, White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel has also begun working the phones, and Vice President Joe Biden last week even called his old friend, Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii), an ardent F-22 backer.
It’s a fight some Democrats would argue that Obama was foolish to make, raising the stakes unnecessarily with early veto threats. But the F-22 termination is Gates’s signature issue in changing the Pentagon budget.
30, HUGE difference between a life-threatening disease and being in pain. There is no perfect system.
If I had to pick the lesser of two evils then I would pick what we have now. At least I can pick and choose who I want to see. But that’s the “problem” isn’t it? It’s not fair that some can have easy access while others are encumbered with no choice and long waiting lists.
Getting back to the subject of this thread, the problem with “good enough” national defense is there is a huge tendency to be unprepared for future combat situations. Bush inherited a weaker military than what was handed to Clinton. Obama has gotten a stronger military thanks to the Bush administration.
In a perfect world you will never have to spend one penny on national defense. The problem is information is more quickly and easily stolen than ever before. Our enemies are doing their best to bridge any gap and potentially leap frog us. When and if a future crisis happens with potentially China or Russia, you don’t want to have military technology comparable to our enemies. You want to have superior tech.
One of the big reasons why we can leverage what power we do military is largely due to superior tech. Our enemies easily out number us. But sure, go and balance the budget and choke the military while providing all sorts of pork barrel “Stimulus”.
When and if something pops up, we will all be basically say “Damn I didn’t see that one coming”.
http://tinyurl.com/kmcfza
Somehow that bothers some people and they want to make life “more fair” by making others pay for someone else’s health problems. Would I like to help others? Sure I would. Do I want to subsidize someone else’s recreational lifestyle because they take no personal responsibility? Nope. Do I want my own health care services to dwindle as my wait times increase and quality suffers? Absolutely not.
Sorry for the last post…. last paragraph should follow the 2nd paragraph.
#31 – Guyver – HUGE difference between a life-threatening disease and being in pain.
Perhaps you missed that they mentioned people being diagnosed with cancer. And who says that that rich fellow in Canada wouldn’t have survived if he waited?
At least I can pick and choose who I want to see.
If you’ve got money in the bank…
the problem with “good enough” national defense is there is a huge tendency to be unprepared for future combat situations.
Who’s most prepared to stomp out another nation? Even if you slash the budget in half, the US still comes out on top.
Umm Rush
take the blue pill or the red pill..gulp…
Confusion….oh yeah time to blame something on Obama
Seven airframes will not make any difference in US air defense capabilities. The USAF will get all 1987 aircraft as purchased. Plus, let’s keep in mind the F-22A is a very talented, one trick pony…
$600,000,000,000 per year goes to health insurance companies. They are not going down without a fight.
Figure they spend a few billion dollars to line the pockets of legislators and propaganda machine. You can see this is a massive uphill battle to fix this burden on our economy.
Thank you leader obama for taking this up on your first term as president.
The conservatives are wringing their hands and weeping on how to come up with $100 billion a year for Obama’s healthcare reforms.
The military budget is $650 billion a year.
Would we really be in any greater danger if we spend $550 billion a year on defense?
Heck, we might be safer.
#31, Guyver,
If I had to pick the lesser of two evils then I would pick what we have now. At least I can pick and choose who I want to see.
Great. What insurance company are you with? Do they allow you to see physicians not in their plan? Or attend hospitals they don’t have agreements with? Can you really pick and choose your physician and hospital?
Now, in Canada, what citizen is restricted by the insurance plan from seeing the physician he wants to see? Please, you claim it, back it up.
It’s not fair that some can have easy access while others are encumbered with no choice and long waiting lists.
Yes, so very true. Which is just another reason Canada has such a better health care system.
Oh, Boss Limpdick and Sean Hannity have been saying different? Have you ever considered that maybe they are lying to you?
I rarely advocate any Youtube video as an authority. But Jagmeister posted something well worth watching.
Do I want to subsidize someone else’s recreational lifestyle because they take no personal responsibility?
If you have health insurance (or really any type of insurance) you already do. There are very few policies that prevent one from skydiving or snake handling.
Do I want my own health care services to dwindle as my wait times increase and quality suffers? Absolutely not.
Instead, you would rather continue to pay more and more every year to get less coverage. Physicians spend more and more time on the phone arguing with insurance companies that the patient needs a procedure, specific medication, or a treatment. If the procedure is not widely accepted the insurance people might still call it experimental and decline that way. Or the co-pays could bankrupt you as they have all those who couldn’t meet their end of the bills; 60% of all personal bankruptcies are caused by health insurance co-pays.
Fortunately for the rest of us, Obama and the Democrats in Congress are listening to the majority of Americans and doing something.
So fuck you and your selfish attitude.
Here’s a deal to make…you dems don’t waste the 1 trillion dollars on health care and the repubs won’t waste 1.75 billion on the planes.
Both sides are doing nothing but wasting trillions of tax payers dollars. The USA is 8 trillion dollars in debt now and the interest on that debt this year alone will be $300 billion dollars.
When election time comes,vote against every incumbent. I don’t care if you vote democrat or republican. Keep replacing the jokers until we get some people in there that will do whats right for America and its’ people.
Unimatrix,
For starters, saving 18,000 Americans a year from needless death is not “WASTING” money.
Secondly, thats a trillion dollars over TEN YEARS. That’s 180,000 saved American lives… not to mention increased tax revenues from healthier and ALIVE Americans who can keep their jobs. It’s also money spent making our products competitive globally.
But these airplanes and most military crap that blows up? That’s our money thrown down a rat hole.
Other HUGE idea from Dallas on military spending
– If nations want us to be ‘world cop’, we should tax them.
– If oil companies want protection of oil fields in the middle east, then add the cost military presence to a barrel of oil. No more oil subsidies from taxpayers.
– Divert $100B of military spending to the health insurance companies to buy them off. It’s wasted money either way.
–