The Empire 89

'Experts Expect Democrats to Increase Military Spending.
by Aaron Glantz.

Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress are likely to drive U.S. military budgets even higher in 2007, experts say.
This year's Pentagon budget is $436 billion. That amount does not include more than $140 billion that's being spent this year alone on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
"If you think a new wind is blowing in Washington in terms of security issues because the Democrats are going to take over Congress, you probably have another think coming," Christopher Hellman of the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Arms Control and Nonproliferation told OneWorld.
Hellman said that because Democrats are afraid to appear weak on national security, they are likely to continue funding Cold War weapons systems like the F-22 fighter plane, which was designed to address projected Soviet capabilities that no longer exist.
This year, the Pentagon requested no F-22 fighters, but Congress added $1.4 billion to purchase 20 of the aircraft.
The House of Representatives passed the annual defense authorization bill 396-31, with only 30 Democrats voting against it. The same bill passed 96-0 in the Senate.
"The issue is jobs, pure and simple," Hellman said. "The F-22, as its builders will proudly tell you, represents 1,000 corporations in 42 states around the country. That represents a huge number of jobs."
Democrats also have specific areas where they want to expand military spending after they assume congressional leadership positions in January.
"America needs a bigger and better military," reads an October report by Will Marshall of the Progressive Policy Institute, the policy arm of the centrist Democratic Leadership Council, which counts Senators Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) and Evan Bayh (D-Ind.) among its members.'
Lees verder: http://www.antiwar.com/glantz/?articleid=10167