Romney Will Increase Military Spending By $2.1 Trillion With No Plan To Pay For It

[Scuba]

http://thinkprogress.org/security/2012/05/10/481764/romney-military-spending-2-trillion/

Mitt Romney is campaigning for president on fiscal responsibility. “The mission to restore America begins with getting our fiscal house in order,” he says. At the same time, the presumptive GOP nominee says he wants to increase military spending. His campaign website claims that a President Romney will peg the Pentagon’s budget to Gross Domestic Product “at a floor of 4 percent of GDP.” What will that mean in dollars? CNNMoney reports that under Romney’s plan, “the additional spending really piles up in future years”:

With the Pentagon’s base budget — which does not include war costs — forecast to hit 3.5% of GDP in 2013, a jump to 4% would mean an increase of around $100 billion dollars in defense spending in 2013. [...]

Compared to the Pentagon’s current budget, Romney’s plan would lead to $2.1 trillion in additional spending over the next ten years, according to an analysis conducted for CNNMoney by Travis Sharp, a budget expert at the Center for a New American Security. And that number assumes a gradual increase to 4% of GDP. The additional spending would hit $2.3 trillion over a decade if the Pentagon’s budget were to immediately jump to 4% of GDP.

And Romney has not said how he’d pay for it. CNN notes that the “lack of detail means that Romney’s claim of moving toward a balanced budget requires a great deal of trust.” On top of increased military spending, Romney plans on expanding on the Bush tax cuts but has also not said how he would pay for them.

[ellisonz]

1. Corporate welfare for "Defense" contractors...

...a.k.a. pigs at the trough.

[progressoid]

2. He should start a war too.

Ya know, just for old times' sake.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

3. Plans to pay for them, you say?

Republicans NEVER need any plans to pay for anything. We are just told that we should "trust" them that they can simultaneously raise defense budgets endlessly, particularly if they start new wars, and cut taxes down to next to nothing, and pay for everything else that we've already committed ourselves too. Of course, anytime the Dems propose something, the Republican scream endlessly about they need "to have a plan" to pay for their proposals.

[GoCubsGo]

4. Oh, he has a plan.

He'll take it out of the hides of you, me, the poor, all non-defense related government agencies...

[Wolf Frankula]

6. And for what he can't get from that

He'll borrow it from China and Japan.

Wolf Frankula

[mojitojoe]

5. So...why do we need to increase defense spending?

Look at one branch, the Navy. We have more aircraft carriers than the rest of the world combined. More guided missile cruisers than the rest of the world combined. More guided missile destroyers than the rest of the world combined. More nuclear attack subs than the rest of the world combined. More amphibious ships, more naval aircraft, more of just about anything than the rest of the world combined. Yet Romney says we need more ships. Why?