Pelosi Advocates The Crippling Of The US Military
Jan 28, 2010 27 Comments ›› Erik Wong
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) suggested Thursday morning she would support a version of the president’s proposed spending freeze that included defense spending.
She stressed the entire defense budget “should not be exempted,” as President Barack Obama proposed in his State of the Union address Wednesday night, because the Pentagon too suffers from costly, wasteful programs that could produce savings.
“We want them to have everything they need,” Pelosi said of military forces abroad and their families. “But we do not support an entitlement program for overruns in defense contracting,” she quickly added, noting millions could be saved if lawmakers ensured Defense contracts did not overshoot spending targets.
The president’s proposed spending freeze would not cover the Defense Department. It would cap spending at current levels for all discretionary areas of the budget — about one-sixth of what Congress authorizes every year. The move is expected to save about $250 billion over the next three years, White House officials have said.
Obama’s general push for fiscal discipline has won the praise of all lawmakers, but many seemed to differ this week on how to approach it. Republicans criticized the president’s call for a freeze on Wednesday, charging it arrives only after Democrats enacted huge spending increases. Some Democrats even worry it could touch areas that desperately need funding during a period of economic decline.
“We’ll have to look see what the president’s talking about cutting,†Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said Wednesday. “We have to make sure that we have money for education, and also police services and firefighting among other things.”










