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Senate OKs $626B defense budget
The Senate approved a $625.6 billion Pentagon budget Tuesday, ending a weeklong debate reflecting very different but related wars: one in Afghanistan and the other among aerospace giants vying to keep production lines open.
Adopted 93-7, the measure includes $128.6 billion for U.S. military operations overseas, a number that will almost certainly grow in 2010 as the administration revamps its strategy in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region. Meeting with top lawmakers prior to the Senate action, President Barack Obama warned that the annual costs would approach $1 billion for every 1,000 troops added, and Afghanistan is now driving efforts to channel military spending more toward the immediate needs of soldiers and Marines in the field — and not the high-priced aircraft of the past.
Amid a weakened economy, major aerospace companies are being squeezed by Defense Secretary Robert Gates. And both in Congress and overseas markets, new battle lines have formed as corporations like Boeing and Lockheed Martin compete for the remaining dollars — and foreign sales.
Boeing, based in the president’s home city of Chicago, proved a major player in the Senate, which added $2.5 billion to the Defense Department’s request for C-17 cargo planes and has, thus far, avoided any veto threat by the White House. Another $512 million was added for Boeing’s F/A-18 Super Hornets, and in pursuing sales overseas, the company is getting help from both the administration and Senate allies like Sen. Kit Bond (R-Mo.).
August travel records are telling. Obama sent a high-level Defense and State Department delegation to Brazil to promote a multibillion-dollar deal for 36 of the F/A-18s, competing with a French-made fighter. Retired Gen. Jim Jones, the president’s national security adviser and a former board member at Boeing, was part of the trip but left after two days and, “due to an abundance of caution,” kept himself removed from the plane sales talks, a spokesman said.
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http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1009/28014.html
Looks like Uncle Sam is hiring
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