you know, it's self-evident that conservative who simply carry shit for the republican party have jettisoned any pretense to intellectual integrity with this one. they're trying to insist on some imaginary standard to which planned parenthood should be held in the name of some equally imaginary "fiscal responsibility" while they continue to simply throw money at the giant republican-preferred patronage system centered on military expenditure.
Quote:
"We held no program harmless from our spending cuts, and virtually no area of government escaped this process unscathed," said House Appropriations Chairman Hal Rogers in a statement.
As a practical matter, though, the impact of the proposals is easiest to grasp when compared with 2010 funding levels, which are in effect until March 4.
By that measure, defense would not be hit by the $60 billion in spending cuts passed by the House before dawn on Saturday.
In fact, the defense budget would increase to $533 billion, up from $526 billion currently.
That doesn't count the money that will be spent on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, or the money spent on defense-related activities through other agencies, said Lawrence Korb, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, who served as assistant secretary of defense under President Reagan.
The House bill does take a tough stance on one major defense item -- it eliminates funding to build an alternative engine for the F-35 Fighter jet. However, it is a cut relative only to many lawmakers' desires rather than to any request from the Pentagon or the president, Korb said.
Still, the F-35 engine cut is seen as a victory for those who want to eliminate wasteful defense spending.
"The Pentagon has said repeatedly they do not want it and do not need it, and the American taxpayers certainly cannot afford it," said the amendment's sponsor, Rep. Thomas Rooney of Florida, in a statement.
While the House Republicans' bill wouldn't actually reduce the Pentagon's budget, the inclusion of defense-related measures may be significant all the same.
Their original plan was to exclude defense altogether from its roster of spending cuts. But in the quest to meet demands for steeper funding reductions from the party's newest and most conservative members, the House GOP put their once sacred cow in line for consideration along with everything else.
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House Republicans' bill would increase defense spending - Feb. 22, 2011
those heroes on the right actually proposed cutting a single defense procurement item that even the pentagon had said was unnecessary.
and in that style true to the integrity-free way the right rolls, the defense budget doesn't include anything expended on either republican-specific military debacle (afghanistan, iraq) nor does it include money sent streaming down the toilet in the name of "domestic counter-terrorism"----which is of course off the fucking books....
but planned parenthood---there's a problem.