The above document is the executive summary of the House Markup of the 2014 National Defense Authorization Act. The budget that is being proposed for the Pentagon.
If you turn to page 3 you can see a quick rundown of systems that had money added. Big wins for US Army modernization efforts and the USMC ground combat element.
We see money added for....
* Amphibious Combat Vehicle
* Stryker upgrades
* Abrams upgrades
* Medium and Heavy Tactical Vehicles
* Grey Eagle
* Hercules Vehicle
* Body Armor
The DoD had wanted a budget that was all about aviation, future combat ships and more aviation.
Like Goure said, the House Republicans are saying not so fast. The Senate will push forward the Pentagons and Presidents view of things so the conference committee work on this will bear watching.
Sidenote: The House is trying to push the Marine Corps along the road of getting the Amphibious Combat Vehicle program done. It will fall to the next Commandant to see that thru. 5 months left for Amos.
So the Politicians put bulk of the money excatly where they wanted to......their own constituencies pumping out all those new weapons, upgrades, modifications, refueling etc. No surprises here. Keep the production lines rolling and the constituency worker employed. The base line for political thinking here is.....if 4% or thereabouts of US GDP is getting invested in defence, a huge percentage of that is Capital Expenditure to be spent on weapons and capital items. Lets try to get an 8-20% rate of return back to the tax payer on all capex by having it invested only on US built weapons in our own existing constituencies. Hell, you spend 500 Billion Plus of my tax payers money and say i dont get my "Cut"......Apologise, Apologise now and dont you dare touch "My" National Gaurd.....hard working folks who spend their money in my area without me having to invest anything.
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