After veto threat, Obama signs $633 billion defense bill

President Barack Obama gets off Air Force One upon his arrival at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Honolulu, Hawaii, Wednesday, Jan. 2, 2013. / AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster

HONOLULU President Barack Obama has signed a $633 billion defense bill for next year that tightens penalties on Iran and bolsters security at diplomatic missions worldwide after the deadly attack in Benghazi, Libya.

Obama had threatened to veto the measure because of a number of concerns, including limits on his authority to transfer terrorist suspects from the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, for one year.

But Obama said that although he continued to oppose certain sections of the bill, "the need to renew critical defense authorities and funding was too great to ignore."

• Obama signs fiscal cliff bill into law

The bill includes cuts in defense spending that the president and congressional Republicans agreed to in August 2011, along with the end of the war in Iraq and the drawdown of American forces in Afghanistan.

[dolphat]

SFCompass- a well articulated post however most of your facts are not true and I would like to know where you get them.

"These are right and good things to do and I am glad we spend on "defense" to help so many people"

So you want to provide health care to the rest of the world but for poor and elderly Americans this is an "entitlement" which you have stated is pretty much the sole cause of the debt problem. Are you kidding me!?!

"I would say we are all pretty evenly represented by "big money". "

That makes no sense. Both parties accept huge amounts of money from special interests and wealthy donors who in return get their interests represented.
So how is the average American on equal footing with that? Not to mention the huge amounts of money spent by corporations and the wealthy to take out advertising to influence election results.

"Paying more taxes to cover our spending seems reasonable. However, as of 2013, if we taxed 100% of all the wealth we create we can only pay for entitlements."

Really?! Where did you come up with that? Completely false. I don't think Clinton balanced the budget by taxing at 100 percent. Your arguments, like many of the election ads, sound great but are completely false.

[sfcompass]

China's military budget was self-reported at $106B and estimated at an actual $150B. (we are not 10x). Of our $663B defense budget, we will spend $178B of that on training armies from other countries, disaster relief, humanitarian assistance, etc. Basically we spend more in our defense budget to help other countries than China spends on defense period. Ever seen an aircraft carrier offshore flying helicopters with medical supplies to an earthquake zone? China has never done that and never will do that. In Bangladesh folks were pretty happy to see the USNS Mercy offshore thanks to our $600B+ defense budget. We have 173k service members currently serving overseas. (not 600k) This is down from 255k in 2001, down 33%! At this rate they will all be home just as we hit $30T in national debt and our economy topples over like Greece. There are only 761 military bases world wide, counting those in the US (not 900-1000 international). Part of the difference is in what some call a "military base". Go visit Ft. DeRussy on Waikki Beach if you don't understand. We started on our Stealth Fighter project in '77. China just built their first and it sucks. We have 11 of the worlds 21 aircraft carriers and all the "big ones" are ours. There is a reason we spend more and it is not to add more stars to the flag. It is to stop bad things (Slavery, Facisim, etc). However, I wish we could spend less. Procurement reform would help. Ask Walmart how they buy stuff if you want an idea of what I mean. Also, recognize that it is a powerful image to have a US Marine providing medical care to an injured Arab. It is a powerful image to see a US Special Operations team building a water treatment facility in sub-saharan Africa. These are right and good things to do and I am glad we spend on "defense" to help so many people. Again, wish we could spend less on the killing/breaking part. I will be glad when that day comes.

As for money in politics, consider that only one (Michael Bloomberg) has bought a statewide or national office in the last 7 elections. In EVERY other case, the "rich" candidate has lost. There have been 26 or 28 of these, depending on how you classify "rich". Having a lot of money to spend is almost the best way NOT to get elected. Given that the "lobby" organizations represent everything from Green to Guns, I would say we are all pretty evenly represented by "big money". I always heard that on capital hill, money is "party-blind", but "power-focused".

Paying more taxes to cover our spending seems reasonable. However, as of 2013, if we taxed 100% of all the wealth we create we can only pay for entitlements. Thus with the current budget, we are still $1.2T in the hole at a universal 100% federal tax rate. This also means you get no paycheck, no paying the mortgage, no way to buy food. 100% tax rate. So, unless you are on food stamps, adjusting tax rates is not going to help us out of this problem. We cannot tax enough. Period.

So how do we get ourselves out of a hole so deep and growing so fast that it is impossible to raise enough money to keep the hole from getting deeper? How about we start by reducing the speed at which we dig the hole?

Sad fact - entitlements are almost the entire and sole expense causing the long term debt and deficit, Ok two poorly managed wars added 3.2% (the war part of each was handled beautifully - it was the peace we screwed up afterwards) and Bush's tax cut for millionaires added 0.0056%. We need to slowly raise the retirement age compared to where it was when my great grandfather retired. Over the next 10-15 years we raise it to the point where Social Sec is projected at paying an avg 10yrs vs the current 18yrs.

Also, means test Medicare... duh... and cap Medicare and Medicaid lifetime payments at $2M per person.

Finally, tax holiday all current offshore corporate cash. The almost $1T offshore will never come back at 20%+. Let companies have it back for free. No restrictions or paperwork. Just give them 30 days to bring it back. The R&D and job creation would rival the Internet Boom and the Realestate Boom - two events which almost allowed us to *gasp* - balance the budget. Who cares if the robber barrons keep some of it. Reality is that they don't want the income tax hit and they like to grow their companies (they already own yachts) so let them spend on building new divisions and departments and widgets to fill our storage units with stuff we don't need.

One other solution that would probably work. We should take one election and submit to not vote for ANYONE for any office that has ever held office before, worked for any political party... or has been to law school. Only campaign promise is we would not spend more than we make. (shocking concept)

Anyway.... just my humble opinion.

[robert1129]

I really wish someone would ask Obama these two questions and not settle for a half assed reply:

1. This $653 billion bill is about 10X what China spends and is around bigger than the combined budgets for 42 other nations. Why is that?

2. We have around 900 military installations outside of the USA with around 600K troops, many with families, to man them. Why not have a BRAC commission evaluate them for closure/realignment/whatever.

The media is letting us down by not asking these hard questions.

[straightener--2008]

Once we get downgraded, again, you can kiss these giant unfunded expense approprations GOOD-BYE.

[dolphat]

UID_ZERO- There is some truth to what you say but let's face it, the people don't really choose their representatives. The one who is able to collect the most corporate and wealthy donations is the one who usually wins. Until you get rid of the money in the election process, the people will never be properly represented and the wealthy and corporations will control the government. Campaign financing reform should be the #1 issue in the US but you rarely hear mention of it. In fact any company or individual with enough money to spend can take out ads whether they are true or not and influence the election process. With big money controlling the process, it will be impossible to change under the present system. The USA needs a revolution (a real tea party not the one invented by rich people who don't want to pay taxes).

[beelaboola]

Yes, it's the biggest welfare program we run, by far.

[amskeptic]

Funny how defense spending was not even mentioned as a debt reduction strategy before attacking Social Security that WE PAID INTO, that they have borrowed down.
Immoral. Illegal. We are Dupes.

[uid_zero]

I have a big problem with what is going on at a macro level. I agree that we have been ripped off. The thing is that the politicians more or less have done what we elected them to do. Tax cuts and new spending programs. We have been irresponsible in electing the people that have and not doing the research to understand if what we're being promised is reasonable.

Honestly, I would expect that the most responsible thing to do requires shared sacrifice, we all need to pay more in taxes and all government programs need to take a hit. If you think about it, how many people would elect someone running on that platform. :)

We are our own enemy.