{"id":259835,"date":"2010-02-01T13:13:35","date_gmt":"2010-02-01T18:13:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/washingtonindependent.com\/?p=75377"},"modified":"2010-02-01T13:13:35","modified_gmt":"2010-02-01T18:13:35","slug":"gates-wants-741-2-billion-for-defense-this-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/259835","title":{"rendered":"Gates Wants $741.2 Billion for Defense This Year"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Adm. Michael Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, have just begun their Pentagon budget and QDR press briefings. Here&#8217;s what they&#8217;re asking Congress to approve for the next year: $548.9 billion for the so-called base budget next year, excluding the cost of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, which Gates said reflects &#8220;realism with regard to risk, realism with regard to resources&#8221; and &#8220;plausible real-world scenarios, potential threats and adversaries.&#8221; But if you read <a href=\"http:\/\/washingtonindependent.com\/75201\/pentagon-planning-document-eyes-navy-air-force-programs-for-cuts\">my QDR preview<\/a>, you knew all that. &#8220;The wars we fight are seldom the wars we planned,&#8221; Gates said.<span id=\"more-75377\"><\/span><\/p>\n<p>So for next year&#8217;s war request, Gates wants $159.3 billion. But that&#8217;s not all: for the &#8220;extended surge,&#8221; he wants a $33 billion supplemental to pay for the extra 30,000 troops. That&#8217;s technically part of <em>this<\/em> year&#8217;s budget request. &#8220;I will be asking the Congress to enact the supplemental by the spring,&#8221; Gates said.<\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s $741.2 billion to be spent on the Pentagon over the next year, if you&#8217;re counting. Compare that to <a href=\"http:\/\/washingtonindependent.com\/37503\/gates-663-billion-budget-changes-defense-priorities\">last year&#8217;s total $663 billion request<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Adm. Michael Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, have just begun their Pentagon budget and QDR press briefings. Here&#8217;s what they&#8217;re asking Congress to approve for the next year: $548.9 billion for the so-called base budget next year, excluding the cost of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4314,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-259835","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259835","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4314"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=259835"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259835\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=259835"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=259835"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=259835"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}