THE DEMOCRATIC-controlled House of Representatives was yesterday poised to give the Pentagon dozens of new ships, aircraft and armoured vehicles that US defence secretary Robert Gates says the military does not need.
The House is acting in many cases in support of defence contractors and political contributors under a “business as usual” approach that the Obama administration vowed to end.
The unwanted equipment, in a military spending bill expected to come to a vote on the House floor, has a price tag of at least $6.9 billion. The White House has said that some of the extra expenditures could draw a presidential veto of the department’s entire $636 billion budget for 2010. It sent a message to House lawmakers on Tuesday urging them to cut spending for items that “duplicate existing programmes, or that have outlived their usefulness”.
The dispute over Congress’s insistence on additional spending reflects a continuing struggle between Mr Gates and lawmakers loyal to existing military programmes benefiting contractors that provide jobs and heavy campaign donations.
Mr Gates vowed in April to overhaul the military’s “approach to procurement, acquisition and contracting”.
But House lawmakers who support past priorities appear likely to prevail in this round, because an unusually restrictive rule for floor debate which was agreed on Wednesday will only allow amendments to strip less than half of the spending the administration dislikes. – (LA Times-Washington Post service)