Obama calls for Defense Budget Reform – A Smart Defense Budget

If you’re spending almost four hundred billion dollars on defense, you’re choosing national security over economic secuity, whether you realize it or not.

by Robert L. Hanafin, Staff Writer, Major, U.S. Air Force-Retired

During his last address before Congress, President Obama made a powerful case for investing in what is "absolutely critical to our economic future": green energy, universal health care and educational opportunity. And the President clearly said one way we can find the money:

In a single day, one of the most powerful Republican members of Congress and then the President himself both took up the call we at TrueMajority have been championing for years. We have to back them up and campaign to get this done.

True Majority is raising funds in honor of our 44th President — the first one since
Gen. Dwight Eisenhower willing to take on the defense industry lobbyists. President Obama can’t do it alone nor with promises. There are those within his own Defense Department and hold overs from the Bush administration who will passionately oppose this effort on behalf of their friends in the Defense Industry. Not to mention the revolving door between the Defense Industry and senior Pentagon leadership both uniformed and civilian.

     Now that we’ve got our chance to win, we can’t afford to be out-shouted by conservative wing nuts.
You remember what the stimulus fight was like: A few right-wingers held the process hostage for days,
while more and more Americans lost their jobs. It took thousands of phone calls from you and our
partner organizations to round up the votes in Congress.

We’re beginning a campaign to build the same support for changing the way the military budget works,
but it can only happen with your participation and contributions.

Help Kick off the campaign. Hundreds of members have joined already, and our action squads will start
gathering next week. We can’t afford to stop fighting when we’ve got a real chance to change the nation’s priorities by investing in true economic security and still have a smart defense.

Matt Holland
Online Director
TrueMajority / USAction

www.cnn.co2009/POLITICS/02/24/sotn.obama.transcript/

Robert L. Hanafin

Readers are more than welcome to use the articles I’ve posted on Veterans Today, I’ve had to take a break from VT as Veterans Issues and Peace Activism Editor and staff writer due to personal medical reasons in our military family that take away too much time needed to properly express future stories or respond to readers in a timely manner.

My association with VT since its founding in 2004 has been a very rewarding experience for me.

Retired from both the Air Force and Civil Service. Went in the regular Army at 17 during Vietnam (1968), stayed in the Army Reserve to complete my eight year commitment in 1976. Served in Air Defense Artillery, and a Mechanized Infantry Division (4MID) at Fort Carson, Co. Used the GI Bill to go to college, worked full time at the VA, and non-scholarship Air Force 2-Year ROTC program for prior service military. Commissioned in the Air Force in 1977. Served as a Military Intelligence Officer from 1977 to 1994. Upon retirement I entered retail drugstore management training with Safeway Drugs Stores in California. Retail Sales Management was not my cup of tea, so I applied my former U.S. Civil Service status with the VA to get my foot in the door at the Justice Department, and later Department of the Navy retiring with disability from the Civil Service in 2000.

I’ve been with Veterans Today since the site originated. I’m now on the Editorial Board. I was also on the Editorial Board of Our Troops News Ladder another progressive leaning Veterans and Military Family news clearing house.

I remain married for over 45 years. I am both a Vietnam Era and Gulf War Veteran. I served on Okinawa and Fort Carson, Colorado during Vietnam and in the Office of the Air Force Inspector General at Norton AFB, CA during Desert Storm. I retired from the Air Force in 1994 having worked on the Air Staff and Defense Intelligence Agency at the Pentagon.