Here’s something new I’ll call Romney’s Book of Lies (because I’ll throw some additional chapters out there from time to time, if for no other reason than to raise the BP of conservatives):
Romney pledged, “As president, on day one, I will focus on rebuilding America’s economy and I will reverse President Obama’s massive defense cuts. Time and again, we have seen that attempts to balance the budget by weakening our military only lead to a far higher price, not only in treasure, but in blood.” Mittens also has vowed to increase the size of the military by 100,000 troops, a move he says is needed to reduce the hardship of long and frequent deployments.
Unfortunately for Romney there have been no “massive defense cuts” under President Obama, although he has slowed the “projected” rate of increase and in April asked the Pentagon to identify an additional $400 billion in reductions over the next 12 years, he hasn’t “cut” a single penny from defense spending.
When President Obama was sworn in, the defense budget was $513 billion, not counting $153 billion to pay for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. For the budget year that ended 30 Sep 11, the figure was $530 billion, with an additional $159 billion to pay for the wars. So, as anyone can plainly see, there has been an increase in defense spending under President Obama, not some imaginary “cuts”; and for the current fiscal year (FY 12), the President has requested $553 billion for the defense budget, exclusive of war costs. But, in a deal worked out by Congress and the White House as part of a deficit-reduction plan in August, he was forced to come down to $513 billion – I hope everyone was paying attention to who wanted to spend $553 billion and who forced it to go down to $513 billion; in case you missed it, it would be the Republican Tea Party (GOTP) controlled Congress – meaning the House of Representatives – who as any fifth grader knows, controls the federal purse strings.
The Liberty Tree 