Page 7 - Security Spending News Today

>> it is more than we spend at peak of cold war, when ronald reagan was fighting the soviet union. john: cato, your think tank made this video that compares our military spending that that of our allies. >> every year u.s. spends -- our allies spend a quarter or less to defend themselves. we agree to pay big bucks to defend our friends, and they let us. that allows our friends to spend far more on everything else. we pick up the tab for global security spending, and our allies free ride. >> they...

Relation to legislation for universal background checks. >> well, absolutely. and much as they probably should, frankly, i mean, the sequester. i mean, you know, just last week you had james clapper of the intelligence, of dia essentially saying he was concerned about the degrading of our intelligence capabilities because of the sequester. you had the fbi saying that they were going to have to furlough every single employee for at least three weeks at some point during this period. we all unders...

We have a graph that shows this. this is the options on the table. the green line is mitt romneys idea. this is base spending. it doesnt include wars or security. if you talk about security spending, you get a larger amount of money. barack obamas proposed leveling and the see quest ration. larry, you worked on this issue for a long time. what has changed? >> what has changed, i think the late senator mcgovern pointed out. we dont have a threat, yes, we have a threat with terrorism. you are not ...

>> it might be about virginia. a huge about of the virginia economy revolves around defense contractors. >> if obama is smart, he will expose that. >> you know why george bush was talking about cutting defense spending, the point the admiral made earlier. he said technology is going to substitute. he had the revolution -- >> the rumsfeld vision. >> yeah. basically, he was arguing the democrats had not supported that. i think thats what people, you know, forget. of course after 9/11 they got ever...

Such an increase would force giant reductions, about 40%, in everything thats left. and katty kay, with libya on the front pages and sort of this growing scandal over security there, with syria in complete chaos, while we all know the defense budget needs to be cut over the next decade, its going to be hard for the president to press that case, isnt it? >> well, yeah, except that the question is not how much money youre spending but how sbelg intelligently youre spending it. as libya has shown a...

Government and there is nothing in the record of the republican party to suggest that they will shrink government. it just doesnt -- its not there. youve written about this in your book "drift," under reagan, we saw it under george w. bush. government grew as a share of gdp, security spending, even things like medicare part d. the question is, who will government benefit? that is question at issue in the campaign. do not let yourself -- the reason that hypocrisy is so important, do not let yours...

Due respect to icloud, that mitt romney is, the inability to even imagine that people who are poor are parents who cant lend their kids money its been generationally transmitted number one, but number two, the inability to imagine your policies are going to slash education. youre talking about all this, you know, non -- nondefense security spending that youre going to do, its going to be at the expense of these educational institutions. you dont have any idea about what inner city teachers have ...

Will determine our ability to protect america tomorrow. the first purpose of a strong military is to prevent war. the size of our navy is at levels not seen since 1916. i will restore our navy to the size needed to fulfill our missions by building 15 ships per year, including three submarines. i will implement effective missile defenses to protect against threats. and on this, there will be no flexibility with vladmir putin. and i will call on our nato allies to keep the greatest military allian...

Remain secure. the decisions we make today will determine our ability to protect america tomorrow. the first purpose of a strong military is to prevent war. the size of our navy is at navy levels not seen since 1916. i will restore the navy to the size needed for our missions by building ships per year including submarines. i will implement defenses to protect against threats. on this, there will be no flexibility with vladimir putin. i will call on our nato allies to keep the greatest military ...

could it still fall apart? we want to welcome our viewers in the united states and around the world. im wolf blitzer. youre in "the situation room". its been a day of dramatic changes in washingtons debt crisis. within the past few hours capitol hills angry partisanship gave way to serious negotiations, and then to predictions of an agreement within the very near future, one top republican, the senator minority leader mitch mcconnell declared and im quoting, hes confident and optimisti...