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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Tenchusatsu who wrote (219923)	2/20/2005 5:32:11 PM
From: tejek	Respond to of 1574791

Ted, According to their numbers, defense in 2004 was $454 billion. That means when you add in the $80 billion for Iraq that for whatever reason, was kept outside of the Defense budget that defense figure increases to a grand total of $534 billion. I suspect the CBO numbers include Iraq, since Iraq doesn't appear anywhere else in the CBO's numbers. (If it didn't, then the true deficit would be greater than $412B, a fact that the mainstream press would have instantly noticed.) That would mean the CBO's number of $454B isn't too far off from my number of $474B. At the end of each budget year, Bush comes in for supplement funding on Iraq outside the regular budget; roughly $80-90 billion each year for the past two years. They do that for good reason. They want it to stay out of the defense budget so that it doesn't look like they are running up defense spending. I believe that that money is treated differently and is 'hidden' somewhere else in the budget: "BAGHDAD, Dec 24 (AFP) - US President George W. Bush is expected to seek authorisation for spending of an additional 80 billion dollars in Iraq, the head of a visiting congressional delegation said Friday. Kolbe was very critical of the pace of spending on reconstruction in Iraq given that 87 billion of supplemental funding for operations and reconstruction in Iraq and Afghanistan was approved in October 2003 by Congress on the assumption that they were "urgently needed."" politicalgateway.com Whatever the exact number, however, its too much. In fact, its a sin how much we spend on defense. How much should we spend on defense? How the hell would I know? You reduce the ridiculous goals we have set up for ourselves as SPIDERMAN TO THE WORLD and then reduce spending accordingly. ted

To: Tenchusatsu who wrote (219923)	2/20/2005 5:34:33 PM
From: tejek	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1574791

Bush Seeks $400 Million Fund to Reward Coalition Allies Posted by: worldwatcher On: Wed February, 9 2005 @ 13:42 GMT President Bush plans to ask Congress to set up a $400 Million dollar fund which will be used to reward countries such as Poland and others who took political and economic risks to join U.S Coalitions in Iraq and Afghanistan. Poland would recieve one fourth of the funds with the remaining being shared by unspecified nations. original news source: ap.tbo.com "Poland has been a fantastic ally because the president and the people of Poland love freedom," Bush said during his Oval Office meeting with Kwasniewski, a staunch ally in the Iraq war. "I know the people of your country must have been thrilled when the millions of people went to the polls" in Iraq. Democratic Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., the ranking minority member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, says the fund is indicative of the administration's inability to attract more well-to-do nations to the coalition at the start of the conflict. "It's kind of a shame," he said in a telephone interview. "The reason we're having to do this is that we never reached out to those who have the ability and capacity to do this to begin with." He called the countries in the U.S. led coalition in Iraq "courageous" but said the administration had no choice but to offer them help because their societies and national budgets can't afford the cost of being in Iraq for extended periods of time. One administration official said the fund was designed to provide help to Eastern European nations, such as Ukraine, Hungary, Romania and the Baltic states. Bush is meeting March 9 at the White House with Traian Basescu, the president of Romania, which has an estimated 700 troops in Iraq. "These funds ... reflect the principle that an investment in a partner in freedom today will help ensure that America will stand united with stronger partners in the future," White House press secretary Scott McClellan said in a statement. "This assistance will support nations that have developed troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as other partners promoting freedom around the world." atsnn.com