Why have not the leaders of the US Congress, House and Senate, not proposed a Haiti relief bill?
Mike asked:
Currently Defense Department is paying this bill from Operations and Maintenance funds. That is money that will not go to body armor, armored vehicles to protect our troops, systems to defeat IEDs, fuel and spare parts. Currently DOD is 24% of the total Federal budget and Humanitarian relief to Haiti was not in the budget. Supplimentals have been cut by the Obama administration. Education, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, interest on the debt are the big ticket items in addition to Defense.
Well in my view the issue is not should we assist but how do we pay for it. The reality is that if this is taken from DoD O&M then we will have to cut back on defensive combat action in the war. Short of turning off the lights and sending people home there isn’t much fat to cut anymore. The Military spending as a percentage of gross national product is lower less than 1/4 what it was in the 1950s. To put the troops at risk is unacceptable. If we have to bill DoD for this then we should stop doing something else.
