Army, Navy, Airforce & Marines, Asking for Billions More Dollars

by Swan | April 3, 2008 at 11:16 am

1852 views | 10 Recommendations | 3 comments

OPINION PIECE:

Surprise, surprise, the armed services are complaining that the monies set aside for them during 2008 is simply not enough.

The Army was allocated $141 billion for 2009, however with their hands out front and center, they are now asking for a further $4 billion.

The Marines budget has been set at $25 billion, but they too have their hands out and asking for an additional $3 billion.

The Navy is promised $124 billion but also wants a further $5 billion.

While these figures may seem a lot to the average reader, the Airforce has topped the other three armed services put together, by asking for an additional -- $19 billion, on top of the original amount, this being $144 billion.

There is bound to be a lot of boot licking happening at the moment - and the members of the House Armed Services Committee do like their shoes clean.

The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have worn down the nation's ground forces, stretching those serving in the Army and Marines and wearing out their gear at an unprecedented rate. [...]

For years, that Pentagon-pleasing panel has asked the services to send it a wish list — lawmakers prefer to call it an "unfunded requirements list" — of budget items they desire but which have not been approved by their penny-pinching civilian overseers, i.e. the Defense Secretary and the President.

When TIME asked some very relevant questions of the Air Force, Lieutenant General Dave Deptula, the Air Force's senior intel officer had this to say:

his service's needs "are severe and getting worse,"[...]

The list reflects the gap "between where we are and where we need to be."

You may already know that the Air Force has a rather unpleasant colloquial name with the other services - they call it the "Chair Force" because so many of it's personnel work behind a desk.

It's not really the image you want in your head of an armed force that is expected to protect America.

Having generated an 11-page wish list, we find that the Air Force has a "requirement" for dormitory furniture, to the tune of (get this!) $13 million.

Perhaps the "requirement" is for water beds and ornately carved, highly polished furniture? General Deptula claims that the list contains only the Air Forces "most critical needs."

Seriously.

Understandably - and I have no issue with this, they want to buy twice as many F-22 jets than currently planned.

Potential threats such as China and India are in their eyes, "21st century equivalent of the Soviet Union, requiring billions in new aircraft."

However, our illustrious President Bush - Hawk Extroadinaire - doesn't believe that they are needed and prefers to channel additional funds to the two wars in which America is currently involved - Afghanistan and Iraq.

Many experts are predicting that both wars will continue for another generation or more regardless of what we hear from the politicians. We simply do not have the money in our coffers to supply the vast needs of two wars AND buy more and more jets.

We are already close to exceeding the defense budgets of World War II.

"Today, free-flowing funding has fundamentally undermined all budget discipline in the Pentagon," says Gordon Adams, who oversaw military spending from a senior post in the Clinton White House.

General Bruce Carlson, the Air Force's chief weapons buyer had this to say to reporters after an industry gathering:

"We're committed to funding 380," he added. "We're building a program right now to do that."

Defense Secretary Robert Gates was clearly not pleased after reading Carlson's comments in Aerospace Daily. He immediately called Air Force Secretary Michael Whynne, telling him to remind Carlson who's the boss.

(Wynne did, and issued a statement saying the Air Force "wholeheartedly supports" the Administration's proposal.)

A frightening statement made by Carlson, gives us an insight and perspective to the way the U.S. Defense Forces are thinking:

today's U.S. Air Force "simply cannot fight and win against the fleet of airplanes that have been developed and are flying in India, China, and so forth,"

Interestingly, Iran was left out of that statement - which seems (to me,) to be of more urgent consideration than India - while I do believe in the strong possibility of America and China going head to head in the not too distant future.

America, are we ratcheting up our defenses because the 'powers-that-be' actually believe that China and India will be our new future threats?

The list doesn't stop with dormitory furniture and and more F-22 fighter. They're also wanting:

More C-130 planes;
More C-17 cargo planes;
11 passenger planes ($1 billion alone!)

More unmanned Global Hawk drones.

You'd think that an unmanned aircraft would be cheaper on the budget, but each of these come at a price tag of $120 million.

100,600 handguns (improved ergonomic design and higher caliber effectiveness.)

The ergonomic design will be of great benefit to our Air Force, since it would be terrible if our soldiers all got repetitive strain injury (RSI) while shooting people! Imagine a poor soldier with a sore wrist - how could he continue to function?!

EACH of those guns holds a price tag of $1,157

210,000 M-4 carbines - with the clips alone valued at $1,747.

The 2007 budget ceiling rose to $439.3 billion during 2007. I've uploaded a screen shot of the breakdown between all the armed forces.

Mark Thompson who wrote the original article, had this very witty quip to end his story - and it works well for mine also:

Now, at long last, the Army may be able to complain about the Air Force having its own army.

Sources:

Time/CNN
The Air Force Reaches for the Sky
by Mark Thompson

The WhiteHouse
Office of Management and Budget

Wikipedia
Military Budget of the United States

Image Sources:

The WhiteHouse

Office of Management and Budget

Time/CNN
The Air Force Reaches for the Sky
Photo by Judson Broehmer/USAF/Getty

Wikipedia
Military Budget of the United States

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Amy Judd

flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 11:35 on April 3rd, 2008

Swan, interesting piece.

Swan

at 11:40 on April 3rd, 2008

Hello Amy,

The amounts mentioned just boggle my mind - no wonder our taxes are so high! Thank you for the flag and comment. :)

I've got a video downloading (then I'll have to convert it,) but it's worth watching, it's actually inside a meeting about the 2008 Defense Budget.
~ Swan

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at 04:46 on February 2nd, 2009

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