Republican leaders are expressing anger tonight after the leaking of a Pentagon memo on their strategy of opposing House Speaker Paul Ryan (R – WI) in his funding strategy, vowing to “play hardball” against Ryan and to court the Democratic leadership for a possible veto.
Rep. Ryan’s plan is to use the Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) budget to get around spending caps, but throwing extra money into that fund to pay for basic operations through April. Then a second funding bill would be sought in April for the rest of the year.
The Pentagon memo terms this a “gimmick,” and while the memo concedes that the plan passing wouldn’t necessary impact US military spending in the long-term, but that the Pentagon wants to attack Ryan for the sake of having a “consistent message of strong opposition.”
Republican Congressmen say that the memo shows an unreasonable level of politics being played by the Pentagon, breaking from a long-standing sense of bipartisan cooperation in passing military spending bills.
Pentagon spokesman Capt. Jeff Davis insisted that Congress should not be surprised by the matter and that they’d been very public in communicating their dissatisfaction with the spending bill. A serious question that many in Congress are wondering, however, is whether this is really routine, and that the Pentagon has been privately plotting to steer funding bills through Congress for years.
I’am hoping for a democratic house for president Trump The democrats will all be against military spending with a republican president . This will force Trump to use his skills at being cheap and perhaps balance the budget his 1st year .
The Democrats are very pro-military spending. Remember, they gladly approved all the Dubya military budgets even after they got a majority the last two years. These days, the Democrats are more committed to military spending than anyone.
Remember, the Democrats have only been anti-war for two brief periods. The most recent was when a revolt against the Vietnam War led to the pushing aside of all the pro-war leaders. This was then spun by Republicans as the (D)’s being ‘weak’ for decades after, leading to the false impression that the Democrats are not in favor of the military.
The first time the Democrats were anti-war was during the Civil War when the Dems opposed that war on the grounds that they were the pro-slavery party of the day.
At all other times, the Dems have been pro-war and pro military spending.
By the time Trump takes office this country is likely to be suffering plenty from the mismanagement of the last two Bozos that served as our presidents .
The Pentagaon only knows how to steer taxpayer dollars in its own direction. More more more….
I find it difficult to believe I can side with Ryan on anything but these are strange times where lies are now the truth.
As Eisenhower warned, beware the Military Industrial Complex.
Follow the money
Georgy Orwell, I think corruption in American is evolving past the Military Industrial Complex – what we are seeing is the premier reaction of The Imperial Praetorian Guard. Soon the Military will be helping to decide who our enemies/allies are, when to bomb someone, whether the military needs a pay raise, etc.
Soon?
We’ve already seen the propaganda machine turn Russia into an enemy. This of course driven by dollars from the ‘defense’ industry. Now the defense industry is crowing that with Russia again being an ‘enemy’ that the taxpayer dollars are again flowing un-checked.
Check out the screams of anquish that Trump might decide to scale back on NATO, and you realize the military is already today deciding who our allies are.
The military pretty much bombs anyone they chose, anywhere they choose. Certainly under Obama the constitutional notion that the people’s representatives in Congress should have a say in this has been completely dismissed.
The brass in the military gets plenty of pay. Either now or deferred until the revolving door swings them over to a ‘defense’ contractor. As to the pay of the regular enlisted people, well they don’t give a dang about that, and never have.
There’s an easy answer if anyone in Congress still believes in democracy.
Pass a bill that states that due to the Pentagon’s unwarranted interference with democracy that the defense budget is immediately cut by $100 Billion. Let it be known that if the Pentagon ever interferes with democracy again, there will be escalating cuts.
Pass that bill, and I’d bet they won’t do this again. 🙂
The Pentagon just announced that they can not account for $6.5 TRILLION.
That’s enough to fund the Pentagon for 10 years. I say we tell them that we aren’t giving them any more money and that they should find the money that they’ve ‘lost’ if they want funding for the next ten years.
We can spend the money solving real problems and getting some real security for Americans instead.