Our kids better have high paying jobs..
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Dookie The Webmaster
6:22 AM
Senate Panel Approves $542B Defense Authorization
The Senate Armed Services Committee has approved a $542.5 billion defense authorization bill for next year that increases military pay, funds new weapons systems and requires Iraq to assume the cost of large-scale infrastructure projects.
The panel last night unanimously approved the package, which would fund the fiscal 2009 "baseline budget" of the Defense Department and national security programs of the Energy Department, Sen. Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.), the committee's chairman, announced today. An additional $70 billion to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan "for some months beyond the current fiscal year" will be covered by a separate supplemental appropriations bill, he said.
The proposed legislation prohibits the Defense Department from using funds authorized by the act to pay for large-scale infrastructure projects in Iraq, which are defined as those costing more than $2 million. It also calls for the United States to begin negotiating with the Iraqi government a cost-sharing agreement to ensure that "Iraq pays for the training, equipping and sustaining of the Iraqi security forces" and covers the costs associated with armed groups of U.S.-allied civilians known as the "Sons of Iraq."
"American taxpayers are paying for too many things ... in Iraq that the Iraqis ought to pay for out of their surplus" oil revenues, Levin told a news conference this morning. With crude oil fetching nearly $120 a barrel, Iraq is expected to reap about $70 billion in oil revenue this year, and both Democrats and Republicans in Congress have complained that the Baghdad government should take on more of the costs now borne by cash-strapped American taxpayers.
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