TOPICS
TOPICS
Supplemental likely to have $3.1 billion for planes
Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii, Tuesday said he expects $2.2 billion for eight C-17 cargo planes and $904 million for 11 C-130 transport aircraft to be included in the final version of fiscal 2009 war supplemental spending legislation Democratic leaders hope to finish this week or early next week.
Inouye and House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey, D-Wis., are working to finalize a tentative agreement reached Monday night, Inouye said. "I think it's just about done," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said Tuesday afternoon.
The aircraft procurement funds were included in the $96.7 billion supplemental passed by the House but not in the $91.3 billion Senate bill.
Inouye said he and Obey are working on compromise language that would put restrictions on bringing detainees to the United States from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Both the House and Senate bills included such provisions.
The tentative agreement includes $5 billion to help boost lending at the International Monetary Fund. The IMF funding is a priority for President Obama, who committed to the funds at last month's G-20 meeting.
Obama said it is part of a multinational effort to increase the financial security of the IMF in the face of the global recession. While the Senate included the funding in its package, the House did not.
House Appropriations Comittee ranking member Jerry Lewis, R-Calif., said the funding bill should not include the IMF assistance because it would take away money that would otherwise be used to support the troops.
"The reported deal struck between House and Senate Democrat leaders will bail out foreign governments at the expense of our troops and provide international giveaways while our own economy is suffering," Lewis said.
"This irresponsible action puts the president's questionable IMF policy experiment above our military, our security, and our economic stability here at home," he added.
Lewis added that "should this 'deal' stand, I will not support this legislation. My colleagues and I would like this to be a bipartisan piece of legislation that gets adequate funding to our troops quickly. There is still time to accomplish this and I look forward to working out these issues in a proper and open conference committee."
House Minority Whip Cantor also opposes including the IMF funds. "Handing over billions to the IMF not only saddles young Americans with more debt but could fund terrorist activity - a complete affront to our troops combating terrorism across the globe," he said.
Megan Scully contributed to this report.
COMMENTS
- (1.) Billions for defense, but not a dime for tyranny! (2.) Spend the money on pumping fuel oil or napalm into the mouth of the caves of the swat valley and Afghan mountains. This should suck the air right out of Osama's sails not to mention his living room. I'm sure we can pick up the heat signatures of any hidden escape routes in those rabbit holes and send some semi literate bombs down those air shafts at half the price of whatever it's going to cost us to appear all warm and fuzzy. These are the same hills Suleiman the Great kept chasing these dogs into every time they nipped at his heals. (3.) If they are not in uniform and cannot be easily picked out from a crowd, they are spies and should be summarily dispatched, fed to some razorback hogs (to ensure that the 72 virgins will not approve of their aroma) and only returned to their homelands in exchange for some courtesy, payment due upon delivery less the cost of the hatbox we deliver them in. WEB Posted June 13, 2009 3:10 AM
- Regarding sale of B2 stealth technology, where int he WORLD did that come from? Sounds like BS to me. Richard Bunn Posted June 9, 2009 9:12 AM
- I would like to see the U.S. stop procuring aircraft that support it as the world's policeman. That is what the C-17 does. I think our money should go to the Coast Guard, Border Patrol and CIA to help defend us against Islamist terrorists. The F-22 fighters have a program unit cost exceeding $350 million per plane--for an airplane that is utterly irrelevant to the threats we face. I would prefer to see the DOD spend some money on the new Stealth F-15E and the delta wing F-16XL, for less than $100 million each. The time has come to stop climbing the technological inflation curve into oblivion. We cannot afford to be the world's policeman or the world's nanny. It is time we demand that the rest of the world step up and get things under control at their expense. Our world empire is doing to us what the Soviet empire did to it. It is bankrupting us. Enough is enough. Don Jones Posted June 4, 2009 1:54 PM
