FY 2009 VA Request and Breakdown (for Sandrat)

by the way (0.00 / 0)

that $93.7 billion is only 4% of the FY 2009 PROPOSED Discretionary Budget. 58% of that budget goes to National Defense, including new fighter jets and aircraft carriers, and a $20 billion recruiting and advertising budget. Well, according to the NationalPrioritiesProject...

and, I stole some cool info from wikipedia that puts the VA Budget into perspective:

War Funding and the Budget

Much of the costs for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have not been funded through regular appropriations bills, but through emergency supplemental appropriations bills. Some budget experts argue that emergency supplemental appropriations bills do not receive the same level of legislative care as regular appropriations bills. In addition, emergency supplemental appropriations are not subject to the same budget enforcement mechanisms imposed on regular appropriations. Funding for the first stages of the Vietnam War was provided by supplemental appropriations, although President Johnson eventually acceded to Congressional demands to fund that war through the regular appropriations process.

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that the President's FY2009 budget proposals would provide $188 billion in budget authority for FY2008. [35] CBO estimates that appropriations for operations in Afghanistan and Iraq since 2001 through February 2008 total $752 billion.[36] That would be approximately 4% of federal spending over the period.

Budget authority is legal authority to obligate the federal government. For many war-related activities there may be a long lag between the time when budget authority is granted and when payments (outlays) are made by the U.S. Treasury. In particular, spending on reconstruction activities in Iraq and Afghanistan has lagged behind available budget authority. In other cases, the military uses contracts that are payable upon completion, which can create long lags between appropriations and outlays.

In principle, the Department of Defense (DoD) separates war funding from base funding. In most cases, however, funds for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan use the same accounts as other DoD accounts. This raises challenges to attempts to achieve a precise separation of expenditures on operations in Iraq and Afghanistan from the base defense operations.

Overall Military Spending

During FY 2008, the U.S. government spent nearly $800 billion on defense and homeland security.[37]

Department of Defense: $741 billion
Homeland Security: $54 billion

Democratic Congressman Barney Frank called for a significant reduction in the defense budget during February 2009: "The math is compelling: if we do not make reductions approximating 25 percent of the military budget starting fairly soon, it will be impossible to continue to fund an adequate level of domestic activity even with a repeal of Bush's tax cuts for the very wealthy. I am working with a variety of thoughtful analysts to show how we can make very substantial cuts in the military budget without in any way diminishing the security we need...[American] well-being is far more endangered by a proposal for substantial reductions in Medicare, Social Security or other important domestic areas than it would be by canceling weapons systems that have no justification from any threat we are likely to face."[38]

Republican historian Robert Kagan has argued that 2009 is not the time to cut defense spending, relating such spending to jobs and support for allies: "A reduction in defense spending this year would unnerve American allies and undercut efforts to gain greater cooperation. There is already a sense around the world...that the United States is in terminal decline. Many fear that the economic crisis will cause the United States to pull back from overseas commitments. The announcement of a defense cutback would be taken by the world as evidence that the American retreat has begun."[39]

U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates wrote in January 2009 that the U.S. should adjust its priorities and spending to address the changing nature of threats in the world: "What all these potential adversaries -- from terrorist cells to rogue nations to rising powers -- have in common is that they have learned that it is unwise to confront the United States directly on conventional military terms. The United States cannot take its current dominance for granted and needs to invest in the programs, platforms, and personnel that will ensure that dominance's persistence. But it is also important to keep some perspective. As much as the U.S. Navy has shrunk since the end of the Cold War, for example, in terms of tonnage, its battle fleet is still larger than the next 13 navies combined -- and 11 of those 13 navies are U.S. allies or partners."

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by: 13 Stoploss @ Mon Feb 23, 2009 at 01:58:52 AM CST

Other 8.909 billion (0.00 / 0)

I hope these 8.9 billion is not the va's way of hiding the bonus program for claims raters to clear claims quickly.  

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by: sandrat @ Mon Feb 23, 2009 at 10:12:05 AM CST

[ Parent ]

Thanks (0.00 / 0)

I think i'll change my name to other and get 8.9 billion. THE Military industrial complexes like POTUS/GEN. Ike warned us about will dump truck loads of lobbing money in Washington if they even think about cutting R&D or Equipment buying money. The VA R&D money is intersing. I'll look at the links you proivde, I would like to see a by state breakdown of homeless outreach, and temp/perm housing. retraining and all the issue related to homelessness. As for the military budget, i got too see what it feels like to be in a divisions which was second in the funding loop, and 13 in the loop. at the time we had 13 divisions. I also saw the draw down from 91 to 99. The draw down was not pretty.      

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by: sandrat @ Mon Feb 23, 2009 at 09:26:21 AM CST