Bush submits massive budget request for DOD

President Bush submitted his budget recently, including a request for just over $419 billion dollars for the Department of Defense. That request is an increase of just under 5% from what they recieved this year (not including emergency spending requests). The entire budget request is in the neighborhood of $2.5 trilliion (damn, that's a pricey neighborhood). The big defense budget request comes as now surprise to me, considering Republicans are usually hawks (and I even lean that way somewhat) and the war in Iraq has casued ammunition, supplies and even some equipment to be used up at a rapid rate. The controvery has been over most of the rest of the budget being cut at the expense of the Defense budget. Bush's plans call for the defense budget to increase (partly due to inflation) to just over $500 billion by FY 2011.
The budget includes some money for increased pay and benefits for our troops (sorely needed) as well as expanding the military by a moderate number of troops. What the budget does not include is the $80 billion expected to be requested to continue fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq that will be requested seperately. It also includes no funding to begin the privitization of Social Security, although that may not be a big deal since there is no guarantee that Congress and the Pres. will come to an agreement in time for next fiscal year.

You can read the story here:
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=514&e=1&u=/ap/20050204/ap_on_go_pr_wh/budget_defense