No Defense for NY Times

James Carafano / March 01, 2009

If there was an award for bonehead defense reporting it should go to The New York Times for “Military Contractors Await Details of Obama’s Budget.” The opening paragraph includes this howler…”The good news for big military from President Obama’s budget this week was his proposal to increase the basic budget by 4 percent to $534.” If the reporter had bothered to talk to any credible military analyst, he would have learned Obama’s plan will likely be anything but a “real” increase in the budget. Here’s why:

• The Pentagon budget looks like it includes about $30 billion that was just moved over from spending that had been in “supplemental budgets” in years past. That $30 billion in the base budget is just displacing other spending….and that is a $30 billion cut in spending!
• Personal costs are going up at an average of 5 to 10 percent a year. The president has said he wants to add more troops next year…that means a lot less money for anything else…including buying equipment for the soldiers. (more…)