Math was hard for republicans in the 2000 election too.
In the end they discovered that even when X > Y, Y can still win.

I have to remark that it could still be considered a cut. This is because this budget includes all the war money. If you remember the Bush days, every few months Bush would ask congress for XX billions to continue the war and support the troops. Obama isn't planning to do this AFAIK. So if you would add Bush's pleas to congress to his military budget it would probably be higher than Obama's. We'll just have to see if Obama doesn't come to congress for more...

There's a difference between budget and cap in hand.

Budget is for foreseen expenses (ie. defending your country and maintaining your foreign positions), cap in hand is for random happenstance (if you refer to invading a foreign country for no good reason as "random happenstance").

But never let the truth get in the way of stupidly running headlong in to a woodchipper...

>> ^cybrbeast:
I have to remark that it could still be considered a cut. This is because this budget includes all the war money. If you remember the Bush days, every few months Bush would ask congress for XX billions to continue the war and support the troops. Obama isn't planning to do this AFAIK. So if you would add Bush's pleas to congress to his military budget it would probably be higher than Obama's. We'll just have to see if Obama doesn't come to congress for more...


Ahh, this is true, and in fact seems to be what Republicans are half-mumbling when confronted on TV about it.

That takes the conversation a little deeper. The essence of the Gates-Obama budget is that it's cutting back massively on cold-war style programs like the F-22, the airborne laser (seriously), and some of the fancier toys the Navy was building, including the new class of aircraft carriers.

Instead, it's beefing up funding for special ops teams, general recruitment, veteran's benefits, unmaned drones, and likely a wide array of other things that would be of direct assistance to the types of conflicts we're actually engaged in.

In short, defense contractors and their lobbyist-vehicles (aka congressmen and Senators) are going to be unhappy because it means their highly-expensive, dubious utility programs will be cut in favor of spending on things that are more valuable to the military, but less profitable to private industry.