Tax America to save Europe from itself

The Heritage Foundation finds The 2011 Defense Budget: Inadequate and Full of Inconsistencies

This approach reveals that building a force of the size and composition recommended in this paper will require increasing the core defense budget from the current 3.8 percent of GDP to 4 percent. This means that the FY 2015 core defense budget, the last year of the current budget projection, will be $767.6 billion, compared to the Administration's recommendation of $648.2 billion.

$120 billion dollars is a lot of money. Why do we need to raise taxes to cover this?

Area #2: An inability to prevent a hostile power from dominating Europe.

Huh? The Russians are in no shape to invade. What is this threat to Europe that requires American troops to defend against?

Politically, some voices in the EU are calling for a unified Europe to serve as a counterweight to the U.S. in global affairs. In this context, the EU could emerge as the dominant power in a Europe that is hostile to the United States.

So we need to tax Americans to maintain troops in Europe to keep Europe from mutating into a hostile power? So all of the democratic institutions that so many American service members died to ensure in Europe are useless? Really?

-HJC

Obama budget saves F-22 Raptor

New report provides detailed analysis of the Defence market

The December 2009 budget will save the F-22 Raptor fighter plane, due to an appropriation of US$6.3bn for the US Air Force (USAF). Exports of these advanced systems are vital for business and to maintain skilled employment.

No, these billions and billions of dollars will not buy a single additional aircraft, much less provide any for export.

Instead these funds are needed to upgrade the USAF's existing F-22s to a combat configuration. So they can actually be sent to war rather than just to airshows.

Defense Writers Group transcript, page 15

So one thing that's in the budget and I talked about yesterday is to bring more of that fleet, most of that fleet, to a common, high end, capable configuration. But the cost of that is $6.3 billion of R&D. This is in a platform we've already developed. We're going to spend six billion more of R&D to engineer the 3.2 upgrade for the software and the changes in the jet, and then about $2 billion to modify on the jets. That's $8 billion more, and $8 billion I think needs to be spent in order to make sure the 183 airplanes we have will be highly capable fighters.

So the $6.3 billion is only the start of the costs for the Raptor, not the end.

-HJC