Agence France-Presse:
President George W. Bush presented the US Congress with a mammoth 716.5 billion dollar budget request to fund large US military, including its missions in war-torn Iraq and Afghanistan.
Bush's defense budget, unveiled as part of a larger government budget plan for fiscal 2008, also seeks to acquire more troops, warships and aircraft for a major expansion of the US military.
The defense budget request came in three pieces -- 481.4 billion dollars for the Pentagon's 2008 base budget; 141.7 billion dollars for the "global war on terrorism" in 2008; and 93.4 billion dollars to cover additional war costs in the current fiscal year to September 30.
How about we get out of the war-making business? There's obviously no money in it. Well, not for taxpayers anyway. Others are making out like bandits.
Hartford Courant:
...a quarterly report to Congress by Stewart W. Bowen Jr., special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, cites continuing ineptitude and fraud by contractors. It is enough to boil the red blood of American taxpayers. Tens of millions of dollars have been wasted on shoddy construction, poor design and unauthorized expenditures. The bulk of the blame: poor contract oversight.
Notoriously, nearly $44 million was spent on work at a residential camp for police trainers, most notably on unauthorized purchases such as VIP trailers and an Olympic-size swimming pool. The camp was never completed because of security concerns.
There's that nasty word -- 'oversight.' It's way past time congress started exercising oversight and that means saying one simple word.
No.
Tags: news | politics | war | Iraq | Afghanistan | corruption | fraud | crime | Bush | congress |
