President Barack Obama is recommending more spending on the Department of Defense in his fiscal year 2012 budget than House Republicans pushed for in the Continuing Resolution (CR), which keeps the government running through the rest of this fiscal year.
Obama’s 2012 budget calls for $553 billion in the base defense budget, whereas House Republicans ask for only $516.2 billion go to the Department of Defense in their 2011 CR. Though those amounts are for two different fiscal years, Americans for Tax Reform spokeswoman Mattie Corrao told The Daily Caller it demonstrates how Obama doesn’t really care about the deficit or balancing the budget. She said that, by not cutting defense spending, where, “traditionally, Democrats have been extraordinarily willing to cut,” Obama is “probably not willing to cut anywhere.”
“It shows the president’s stance on how serious he is on fiscal restraint, which is obviously not very,” Corrao said in a phone interview. “If Republicans were willing to take on the sacred cow of defense spending from the right and are willing to recognize military spending more so than our pro-peace, anti-war president, it should raise some questions about how serious this president is about cutting spending. And, clearly, if he had campaigned on ending these wars, why are we still spending more on defense than even under the Bush administration?”
Seton Motley, president of Less Government, agrees with Corrao in that Obama failing to cut even the defense budget indicates he could care less about fiscal responsibility.
“President Obama’s need to spend our money is visceral. He cannot help it – or himself, even when it comes to the one government ox the Left always wants to gore – the military,” Motley said in an e-mail to TheDC. “He proposes a huge $3.8 trillion budget, with a miniscule $775 million in cuts – or a pathetic 0.2% of his proposal. The Department of Defense – and every other department, agency and commission – can rest easy with President Obama holding the purse strings.”