Pentagon to spend up to $125 billion on submarine program

Frank Kendall, Pentagon Under Secretary for Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics, signed off on a $125 billion purchase of twelve sophisticated, nuclear-capable submarines. Kendall said he hoped to have the project done before he left.

In late 2016, a continuing resolution authorized the use of $773 million to be spent on the program. The Columbia-class ballistic missile submarines are to begin construction in 2021. The submarines use several propulsion mechanisms, that include nuclear power, turbo-electric drive and a pump-jet. They can be equipped with 16 Trident DS submarine-launched ballistic missiles. The missiles are said to be able to achieve nuclear deterrence with fewer submarines and are almost as accurate as land-based missiles. Submarines are a vital part of the top-priority US Navy weapons program.

US Representatie Joe Courtney, ranking member of the US House subcommittee on seapower and projection forces said: "Without that $773 million, we’d still be twiddling our thumbs. " $30 billion of the program is set aside for reasearch and development of the next-generation Columbia-class nuclear submarines. As the project is competed the US Navy will phase out its Ohio-class submarines.

Ashton Carter, outgoing US Defense Secretary, had criticized the US Congress for failing to pass a full-year budget which in 2013 caused a temporary government shutdown. He claimed that the continuing rersolution put commanders in a straight jacket. He said that these types of arrangements prevent the Pentagon's capacity to "keep pace with complex national security challenges". A Bloomberg report puts the cost of the project at $128 billion.

The submarine project is just part of a trillion-dollar program designed to modernize US sea-air-land nuclear capability over the next 30 years and includes maintenance and support. Obama has backed the project and on this issue president-elect Donald Trump appears supportive. Trump tweeted recently: “The United States must greatly strengthen and expand its nuclear capability until such time as the world comes to its senses regarding nukes." In spite of Trump's apparent friendliness towards Putin and an expressed desire for better relationship with Russia, Trump has even welcomed a renewed arms race with Russia. The future of nuclear disarmanent seems bleak and the possibility of nucear clashes appears more likely under Trump. William Perry a former US Defense Secretary William Perry has pointed out the increasing dangers of nuclear conflict coming not just from North Korea but relations between the US and Russia.

The submarine program is still far behind the cost of the $379 billion F-35 aircraft program and the $153 billion multiservice ballistic-missile defense network. The new administration appears unlikely to skimp on funding projects to feed corporations that are part of the military-industrial complex and are hungry for profits.

Over $600 billion US defence bill bans Guantanamo inmates from US.

The US Senate on Tuesday approved a $607 billion defense spending bill that includes provisions that will make it difficult for Barack Obama to close the detention center at Guantanamo Bay.

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While Obama had vetoed an earlier version of the bill, the new version passed by a 370 to 58 vote in the House of Representatives and 91 to 3 in the Senate. Bernie Sanders, who is running to be the Democratic presidential candidate, was one of the three senators voting against the bill.

Even the new bill has provisions in it that would ban transfer of prisoners from Guantanamo Bay to the U.S. The administration has been studying possible locations for prisoners in the U.S., includeing a "Supermax" facility in Florence, Colorado, designed for very dangerous inmates. The restrictions in the bill would prevent transfer of detainees to the U.S. even for prosecution as well as continued detention. There are also tighter restrictions on transferring detainees to other countries. Obama's plan was to transfer 53 of those remaining in the facility to other countries and to send the 61 remaining prisoners to the U.S. In spite of the roadblocks put in place by the U.S. Congress, the White House press secretary, Josh Earnest, insisted the Obama administration would continue to work towards closing the prison. Closing Guantanamo has been a key unfulfilled promise of Obama from the beginning of his term of office. Earnest was optimistic:“I don’t think this has any material impact on our ability to put together and send to Congress a thoughtful, carefully considered plan for closing the prison at Guantánamo Bay, and a plan that we believe merits the strong support of both Democrats and Republicans.”Senate Republicans such as Kelly Ayotte from New Hampshire were critical and warned Obama against any attempt to circumvent Congress saying: “Even when the Democrats controlled the Senate, there have been provisions that have prohibited the transfer of the terrorist detainees at Guantánamo to the United States of America. So this discussion that you’ve seen from the administration to say that the president is contemplating an executive order on this issue clearly would violate the law.”

Josh Earnest commented on the executive order issue:"I'm not aware of any ongoing effort to devise a strategy using only the president's executive authority to accomplish this goal. But I certainly wouldn't, as I mentioned last week, take that option off the table."The new bill cuts less than 1 percent from the previous bill. There was bipartisan agreement that the U.S. needed to spend the money to maintain and upgrade U.S. military capacities due to threats against American interests throughout the globe. As Republican Senator John McCainput it: “We must champion the cause of defense reform, rigorously root out Pentagon waste, and invest to maintain our military technological advantage, and that is what this bill is about."

Among the specific expenditures authorized were $300 million for military aid in Ukraine. The bill also grants a request from Obama for $715 million to be used to fight the Islamic State in Iraq. There was also a further expenditure of $80 billion in a separate bill that passed 93 to 0. The bill was for veteran's programs and military construction projects. The White House has affirmed that Obama will sign the bill in spite of the retention of provisions that make it difficult for him to close Guantanamo as well as minimal spending reductions. Both houses have sufficient votes to overcome a veto in any event.

Defense industry becoming pessimistic about chance of avoiding fiscal cliff

The defense industry may be becoming more pessimistic about a deal to avoid the fiscal cliff before the end of this year. They are also annoyed that they are sidelined during talks.

The industry feels that they will be able to demand a deal that will see military spending hiked back up some time in 2013. An anonymous source said:

“I think people resigned to the fact that this needs to be addressed in January,”

At the Pentagon, Obama administration officials have given those who crunch the numbers in the Defense Department permission to start the process of cutting $500 billion from their budget in January of 2013. Top defense industry lobbyists had been trying to convince both parties that going over the fiscal cliff would be a complete disaster. While John Boehner tried to implement a Plan B to deal with the fiscal cliff, he was unable to pass it through the Republican-controlled House since it involved tax hikes for the very rich.

It is still possible that there will be a last minute deal that will be a stop-gap measure. Obama has cut short his vacation to continue negotiations. One defense industry source said that its message of doom if the fiscal cliff were not avoided fell on deaf ears.

Top defense analyst, Loren Thompson said:

"I think there's a creeping sense of pessimism in the defense sector … I don’t think most people in the industry really understand why their pleas have [been ignored]."

Thompson said that among lawmakers many felt there was no urgency about avoiding cuts to the Pentagon budget since even with the cuts US defense spending will still be many times higher than its nearest competitor. Thompson went on:

"They don’t want sequestration but they’re capable of dealing with it."

Some analysts think that the problems created by jumping over the cliff will be addressed early in January. If the stock market begins to fall, there will be more pressure for a deal to be worked out. Even in the New Year, Thompson was pessimistic about any grand deal in the near future.

Obama to increase defense spending in 2011 budget

It is not surprising given the surge in Afghanistan and also increased military aid to Pakistan and other areas such as Yemen. The role of global cop is going help drive the US deficit into the stratosphere. In the future social programs will be cut to the bone and the real standard of living for many Americans will decline. One wonders what the reaction of the US public will be and in what ways politicians try to focus or release the pent up anger. This is from politico.com.



War spending surges in 2011 budget
By: David Rogers


President Barack Obama’s new budget, to be released Monday, forecasts two consecutive years of near $160 billion in war funding, far more than he hoped when elected and only modestly less than the last years of the Bush Administration.

In 2011 alone, the revised numbers are triple what the president included in his spending plan a year ago. And the strain shows itself in new deficit projections, already hobbled by lagging revenues due to the weak economy.

The administration appears to be projecting a deficit of near $1.6 trillion for the current year and $1.3 trillion in 2011. That is even more pessimistic than Congressional Budget Office estimates last week, and it’s only in 2012 that the projections drop to the range of $800 billion to $700 billion.

By the end of the decade, the gap again widens, and as a percentage of GDP, the average appears above the 3% target viewed as sustainable.

Obama has responded with a three-year domestic spending freeze impacting about $447 billion in annual appropriations. This leaves him less money to sustain the very rapid growth seen last year in clean water programs or the Great Lakes restoration initiative. The Environmental Protection Agency budget would be cut modestly, and to stretch his dollars, Obama wants to dramatically ramp up the Energy Department’s credit budget, a low-cost way to extend tens of billions in loan guarantees to the nuclear power industry.

But on balance, the president’s plan seems less restrictive in many areas than lawmakers had anticipated. With the Senate having just passed a $1.9 trillion debt ceiling increase last week, fiscal moderates in his own party may insist on even tighter limits.

Obama’s 2010 starting point for the freeze has a built-in cushion since billions in Census spending won’t have to be repeated in 2011. He appears to count expanded Pell Grant funding for low-income college students as a mandatory cost outside the Education Department’s discretionary budget. And both Veterans Affairs and Homeland Security, two of the fastest areas of recent spending, are exempted from the freeze.

The VA is slated to get significant new money to speed the processing of claims, and billions more will be requested this year to resolve old disputes related to soldiers and airmen exposed to Agent Orange in the Vietnam War.

In the case of education, a top priority for the president, the department’s appropriations would grow by about $3.5 billion to $49.7 billion, a 7.5% increase. But when Pell Grants are counted, the total increase is closer to $11.4 billion or 16% above current spending.

Other departments, like Health and Human Services and Labor, receive smaller increases, more in the range of inflation or less. But within these totals, the National Institutes of Health would grow by about $1 billion or 3%. Community health centers and Head Start are also promised increases, and a teen pregnancy program would be expanded from $100 million to almost $180 million.

Mindful of the strain on state and local law enforcement budgets, substantial increased funding is provided for the hiring of police officers under the COP’s program within the Justice Department.

The budget’s increased war funding is not entirely surprising given Obama’s decision to add more U.S. forces in Afghanistan. And his early estimates for 2011 in last year’s budget were always suspect and more of a “plug” than real.

Nonetheless, seeing everything in a single budget brings the war costs more into focus. Democrats are increasingly agitated by the pace of withdrawal from Iraq, and the combined costs of the two wars is striking –especially when measured against the much more hopeful rhetoric of Obama’s campaign.

The president’s 2010 defense budget a year ago requested $130 billion for operations in Afghanistan and Iraq and just $50 billion in 2011. The new budget ramps up 2010 spending to $163 billion and for 2011 requests $159 billion in overseas contingency funds for the military.

This reverses the drop in war-related spending seen in fiscal 2009, which ended last Sept 30th and was a transition year of sorts between the two administrations. When compared to the peak war spending of the Bush years, Obama is only about 10% below Bush’s annual average of $176 billion in fiscal years 2007 and 2008—the time of the Iraq war surge.

Core defense spending is also feeling the strain and the president’s $549 billion request reflects less than 2% real growth over inflation. At a time when the administration is emphasizing jobs creation, this sets up what could be bitter election-year fights with fellow Democrats over plans to halt airplane and truck production important to employment California and the Midwest.

For example, Defense Secretary Robert Gates is expected to redouble his campaign against the C-17 transport plane this year, much as he successfully went after F-22 production last year. And while the Pentagon is making a huge commitment to the F-35 joint strike fighter, production will slip a year to allow more testing and Gates wants to rollback efforts in Congress to develop an alternate engine for the fighter.

The 2011 budget debate won’t hit full stride until this spring, but Democrats may move earlier than usual on a supplemental spending bill for the current fiscal year.

The Defense Department is seeking $33 billion in additional war-related funding on top of which the State Department will also be receiving additional funds for its beefed up operations in Afghanistan. Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.), chairman of the House defense appropriations panel, wants to include any requests related to Haiti in the same package, and the VA appears to be pursuing its own 2010 supplemental request in the new budget related to Agent Orange claims.


© 2010 Capitol News Company, LLC

Billions of earmarks in Defense Bill

The system of earmarks seems really odd to an outsider. Things totally unrelated to a bill get added on just to please important legislators or buy votes. I guess the practice is not banned simply because such means of distributing pork is found of great use in keeping constituents happy and ensuring re-election of more pork barrel politicians.

Billions in earmarks inflate defense bill's cost
Joe Garofoli, Chronicle Staff Writer



The Department of Defense didn't ask for money to update the old officers club in San Francisco's Presidio into a visitors information center and exhibition space. Neither did any other member of Congress - except House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Her $5 million earmark request for the Presidio Heritage Center was approved by the Senate on Saturday as part of the $626 billion defense appropriations bill, the largest of the end-of-year government spending measures.

The bill, which includes $128 billion for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, is expected to be signed by President Obama.

Pelosi's request was one of 1,720 earmarks - including several from Bay Area legislators - worth $4.2 billion in the measure.

That comes on the heels of Congress passing a $447 billion spending bill Dec. 13 that included 5,224 earmarks totaling $3.9 billion, according to Taxpayers for Common Sense, a watchdog group. The earmarks include $54 million for a flood-control project that will raise two trestles used by the Napa Valley Wine Train.

'Pork-barrel project'
Watchdog organizations say money for the Presidio project is "curious" defense expenditure at best, and pork-barrel politics at its worst. The Presidio closed as a military entity in 1989 and was transferred to the National Park Service five years later. In March, Pelosi tucked $1.75 million for the center into a different spending bill.

"It is the epitome of what a pork-barrel project is," said David Williams, vice president of policy for Citizens Against Government Waste, a taxpayer watchdog group. "If this were a project that was meritorious, then why didn't the Pentagon request it?"

After the defense spending bill passed the House this week, Pelosi issued a statement praising the measure for making "critical investments in the success, health, well-being and training of our men and women in uniform."

Pelosi mentioned that the bill included a pay raise for military personnel and resources for everything from treating troops suffering from traumatic brain injury to money for "first-class equipment and armor."

But she didn't mention the money for the Presidio Heritage Center.

It is "curious" but not surprising why such a project would be in the defense appropriations bill, said Steve Ellis, vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense. "It's because you wouldn't get a $5 million earmark in the Department of the Interior (appropriations) bill. It would stick out like a sore thumb."

...

With all eyes on the Bailout, House passes trillion dollar defense Bill.

No one but no one seems to be talking of cutting defence spending. No one talks of the tremendous cost of entitlement programs when the issue is military spending. It would seem that the US dollar might be under pressure again once the extent of debt expansion through military expenditure and the debt bailout becomes clear. What will happen to all the US needs in terms of social programmes and repair of infrastructure? They will probably be short changed and state and municipal budgets will be stressed to put it mildly.


With All Eyes on the Bailout, House Passes Trillion-Dollar Defense Bill
By Joshua Holland, AlterNetPosted on September 26, 2008, Printed on September 27, 2008http://www.alternet.org/story/100524/
On Wednesday, the House passed a mammoth defense bill by a 392-39 vote. It's expected to clear the Senate with little difficulty next week.
It was part of a trillion-dollar stop-gap measure to keep programs running through next March, allowing lawmakers to skip town without passing a final budget. The Associated Press reports, "The legislation came together in a remarkably secret process that concentrated decision-making power in the hands of a few lawmakers."
In keeping with the tradition of recent years, Bush held a gun to his own head and threatened to pull the trigger if his demands weren't met. According to the AP, "To earn President Bush's signature rather than a veto, House and Senate negotiators dropped several provisions he opposed. They include a ban on private interrogators in U.S. military detention facilities and what would have amounted to congressional veto power over a security pact with Iraq."
In other words, Congress also maintained recent tradition, swearing not to give Bush a blank check and then whipping out their pens and signing a blank check.
The number that the House sent to the Senate for "defense" -- $612 billion for the coming year -- is eye-popping. Imagine a stack of 612,000 million-dollar bills. Quite a pile.
That number's a sham, however. The budget calls for $68.6 billion for the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan in 2009. War costs this year totaled $182 billion, according to the Federation of American Scientists.
The House passed the Brobdingnagian spending measure 11 months after George W. Bush vetoed a bill -- one passed with a lot of bipartisan support -- that would have added $7 billion measly dollars per year to the State Children's Health Insurance Program, covering 4 million more uninsured children. You'd be hard-pressed to find a clearer sign of national psychosis.
Here's what "defense" spending looks like in the era of Bush's "War on Terror," according to official figures:
(click for larger version)
But that's just the cash to feed the gaping maw of the Department of Defense. Throw in a bit more than $50 billion for Homeland Security, around $20 billion for the nuclear arsenal in the Department of Energy's budget, about $10 billion for the Coast Guard, a similar number for foreign "security assistance" and maybe another $125 billion -- according to one estimate -- in other defense-related programs scattered throughout the federal budget.
Bush also requested $91 billion for the Department of Veterans Affairs in 2009, up from $72 billion just three years ago. A generation of damaged young men and women are going to cost more and more as the years go by -- many post-traumatic injuries, for example, don't manifest themselves for 10 or more years after people get out of combat. In 2000, nine years after the first Gulf War, 56 percent of those who had served in that conflict were receiving disability payments.
But wait, as they say on late-night infomercials, there's more!
All of this only finances our current military adventures. We're still paying for Korea and Vietnam and Grenada and Panama and the first Gulf War and Somalia and the Balkans and on and on. Estimates of just how much of our national debt payments are from past military spending vary wildly. Economist Robert Higgs calculated it like this:
I added up all past deficits (minus surpluses) since 1916 (when the debt was nearly zero), prorated according to each year's ratio of narrowly defined national security spending--military, veterans, and international affairs--to total federal spending, expressing everything in dollars of constant purchasing power. This sum is equal to 91.2 percent of the value of the national debt held by the public at the end of 2006. Therefore, I attribute that same percentage of the government's net interest outlays in that year to past debt-financed defense spending.
In 2006, he came up with a figure of $206.7 billion for interest payments on past militarism. Add it all up, and we're talking about at least a trillion dollars in military and homeland security spending. If there were a million-dollar bill, you'd have to stack a million of them to reach a trillion dollars.
Of course, very little of this is "defense." This is empire spending, pure and simple ...
What's that? You want health care, education, affordable housing, 21st-century infrastructure?
Sorry, we've got other priorities.
Joshua Holland is an AlterNet staff writer.
© 2008 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/100524/

House passes 696 billion defense bill.

This is from wiredispatch. This doesn't seem to count for much on mainstream media such as CNN. There the important news of a murder of a marine by a marine and the primaries. Interesting that Bush can push through such a budget even with changes that disallow lawsuits against Iraq during the Hussein era, changes that will impact negatively on American victims of the regime.


House passes $696 billion defense bill

House Passes Defense Bill That Includes Troop Pay Raise, Backs Down on Dispute Over Lawsuits

ANNE FLAHERTY
AP News

Jan 16, 2008 18:27 EST

The House on Wednesday passed a new defense policy bill that includes a pay raise for troops.



President Bush had rejected an earlier version of the legislation because he said it would expose the Iraqi government to expensive lawsuits.

The new bill, which passed 369-46, would let Bush grant Iraq immunity under the provision, which otherwise guarantees that U.S. victims of state-sponsored abuse can sue foreign governments in court. Iraqi officials objected to the measure because they said it would have subjected Baghdad to high-dollar payouts in damages from the Saddam Hussein era.

The administration now supports the bill, said White House spokesman Tony Fratto.

"We appreciate that the House moved quickly to address the serious concerns the president had," he said.

The revised measure also makes the 3.5 percent pay increase for troops — included in the original bill — retroactive to Jan. 1.

The decision to change the bill without attempting to challenge Bush's rejection reflects the difficulty Democrats have had in challenging the president on even minor issues. Democrats lack the two-thirds majority needed to override a presidential veto.

Overall, the bill authorizes about $696 billion in defense spending, including $189 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Besides the pay raises for service members, the bill's primary purpose is to guide Pentagon policy, including setting restrictions on the Pentagon's multibillion-dollar acquisition program.

Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., had sponsored the lawsuits provision, which he said was necessary to provide justice to American victims of terror. Republicans had embraced the legislation, and the bill passed by overwhelming margins in both chambers.

A few weeks later, after Iraqi officials objected, Bush announced his opposition.

In a statement, Bush said the legislation "would imperil billions of dollars of Iraqi assets at a crucial juncture in that nation's reconstruction efforts."

The revised bill allows Bush to waive the provision with regard to Iraq, so long as he determines that doing so promotes Iraqi reconstruction and that Baghdad remains a "reliable ally" in the war on terror.

The bill also includes nonbinding language that urges the administration to work with Baghdad to ensure compensation of any "meritorious claims" stemming from Hussein's regime.

Source: AP News

646 billion defence bill passes US house.

So now there is no timetable for withdrawal. The only Democratic victories are for clauses that promote Buy American pandering to economic nationalism. It will be interesting to see if Bush actually vetoes the bill to show that he wants to reward capital in other countries in the coalition of the willing such as the UK. The Democracs did not even manage to tie Bush's hands with respect to attacking Iran. The truth is they probably do not want to anyway. Hilary is no less hawkish on Iran than Bush as far as I can see.

House Passes $646 Billion Defense Bill
By ANNE FLAHERTY, Associated Press Writer

Thursday, May 17, 2007


The House passed a $646 billion defense bill Thursday that supports the Pentagon's ambitious weapons acquisition program but would place new restrictions on foreign-made technology the military could buy.



The legislation, approved 397-27, has drawn a veto threat from the White House because of its "Buy American" provisions. The measure covers defense spending for the budget year that begins Oct. 1.


In recent years, the Defense Department and Congress have locked horns over this issue. Lawmakers want to protect suppliers in their districts; the Bush administration typically has sided with industry in opposing tough new restrictions.


In a statement, the White House said the House bill would "jeopardize our military readiness when our objective should be to enhance our ability to get the best capability for the warfighter at the best value for the taxpayer."


The White House also threatened a veto over proposed changes to the Pentagon's personnel policies. The legislation would restore collective bargaining rights and access to an appeals process for certain employees.


Rep. Ike Skelton, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said the veto threat was a disappointment, but noted the large majority backing the legislation.


"This is a strong bill that addresses our military's critical readiness needs, supports our troops in the field and at home and protects the American people," said Skelton, D-Mo.


The Senate Armed Services Committee is expected to complete its version of the legislation next week.


Overall, the House bill authorizes more than $100 billion in military procurement. That includes money to buy new protective vehicles and body armor for troops, and an additional $142 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.


Despite the administration's opposition to certain parts of the bill, the legislation was an unusual display of bipartisanship in a Congress sharply divided on the Iraq war. The bill does not call for troop withdrawals, as many Democrats want, and was supported overwhelmingly by Republicans.


Skelton worked to keep the Iraq debate out of the bill to ensure the legislation's survival.


Bush this month vetoed the 2007 war spending bill because it included a deadline for troop withdrawals from Iraq.


Despite their general support for the bill, Republicans fiercely opposed a $764 million reduction in the Pentagon's $8.9 billion request for ballistic missile defense. A proposal by Rep. Trent Franks, R-Ariz., to restore the money failed.


Republicans were successful in adding money for missile defense programs when they tied the money to Israel. The House voted to increase the president's request by $205 million for U.S.-Israeli anti-missile programs.


The House also agreed to an amendment by Rep. James Moran, D-Va., aimed at pressuring the administration on its handling of military detainees at Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba. The measure, approved by a 220-208 vote, calls for a plan to free prisoners slated for release by the end of the year.


The White House said it would veto any bill that prevents the detention of enemy combatants, but has not stated a position on Moran's amendment.


On Wednesday, the House adopted amendments intended to ease the stress of combat on troops and their families.


One measure would require that the Pentagon fly home the remains of soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan to the airport that is closest to their families. A second would prevent deployed troops from permanently losing custody of their children.


Democrats were unsuccessful in adding amendments to prevent a military strike in Iran and to require the videotaping of military interrogations. The Iran measure failed after several members said they feared it would leave Israel vulnerable.