We will have special lines for republicans and democrats independent, and active and retired military. The numbers are on the screen. You can also use social media on twitter, facebook, or email us. A very good Tuesday Morning to you. Two charts to help understand the piece of the budget puzzle that we are talking about this morning on the first front first 45 myth of washington journal and that is the 585 the 4 trillion request. What we are talking about this morning to my want your thoughts on defense spending and the increases that the president is seeking. Here is a comparison of the department of defense spending request to some other agencies on the hill. This is according to Washington Post this morning. The president s budget plan came out yesterday, and of course, all of the agency heads and undersecretaries Holding Press Conferences to talk about their agencys budget request for fiscal 2015 fiscal 2016. Secretary of defense spoke about how the 585 billion request is still a stretch for the military. Even at the president s budget level, which is above sequestration cap, trying to achieve a healthy balance in capacities or size of the force, the capabilities of that force what it is able to do and the readiness of that forced to respond to challenges will remain a constant challenge, and this is especially true with regard to maintaining our technological superiority in the 21st century. One of the publications that covers the department of Defense Military budget is defense one. Marcus weisgerber is a reporter with defense one. He joins us by phone now. We are talking about the 585 billion. Break up that those pots. Guest good morning, john. There are two basic product. It used to be called the war supplemental but much of that is going toward the fighting in iraq and afghanistan. Host what are the biggest items outside that overseas digits the operations budget . What are the biggest items in the base dod budget . Guest in the base budget, one of the largest areas is military personnel, the cost of health care, the cost of pay. One of the other big things is operations and maintenance, that is for training. And that is stateside. And that and then you have your modernization budget. Over 100 billion for that alone. We are not we are talking new fighter jets, ships, tanks vehicles, stuff like that. There is a big increase this year, 21 billion over last years plan. Because the military says a lot of their stuff is old. They have been fighting wars for 13 plus years now and they need the money to buy the stuff. Host one of those projects referred a lot about over the years, the bowling of the f 35 joint strike fighter. What piece of the budget high does that take up for the budget this year . Guest it takes a racist angela park about 10. 6 billion. It takes a substantial pa rt about 10. 6 billion. There have been many troubles over the years in development. A lot of that has been straightened out. Theyve done a lot to restructure that program in the last two to three years. Those jets will be flown by the eight navy, air force command marine corps and a number of international countries. Host we saw robert worth a few minutes ago framing the request the 585 billion dollars request. The wall street journal is noting that this could be one area of compromise between the white house and congress. What do we see in the Immediate Reaction as the president released his budget yesterday . Guest there is agreement on both sides of the aisle on the Defense Budget for the most part. You have on each side those who do not want any kind of spending increases. But for the most part, they agree that spending should go up. The problem is not defense side. Its the domestic spending and other items, Social Security and things like that that are preventing them from agreeing on where to increase the Defense Budget. Host and the increases in nondiscretionarys admin, is this something that will be linked going forward, or is there a chance that defense than he could be increased without the increases on the nondefense side . Guest well, it depends on who blinks first. The republicans are holding firm that they do not want those increases in other areas and the democrats are holding from that they do want those increases in the nondefense areas. Host certainly, a storyline that we will continue to watch. Moving ahead, markets weisgerber is with Marcus Weisgerber is with defense one if you want to check out his work. We appreciate your time this morning. Guest thank you. Host we are talking about the increases for the Defense Budget. Do you support them . Your thoughts on defense spending over the years. The numbers are on the screen. And a special line for members of the military, active and retired. We will look for those calls and of course, tweak and emails as well. I want to show this piece your tweets and emails as well. I want to show this piece noting that the 2016 budget is notable because of all of the talk about how the end of the wars in iraq and afghanistan would reduce spending but the government is still seeking money to fight conflicts abroad. That is just some from the New York Times piece on this. I want to show you some comments from our facebook page. Kevin lincoln im sorry, cap the bowl that no more, congress has dropped the hammer on the vets. They have already for for lizzie made. They have already frivolously made. Just a few of the comments on our facebook page. You can also give us a comment on twitter or give us a call. Dana is on the line from bloomington, on the line for republicans. Caller good morning. Your question on Facebook Says do you support races in the Defense Budget . My answer, raises in the Defense Budget . My answer is no. This will likely be approved with congressional approval with militant with miscellaneous added to it, as is expected with any goalie comes before congress. However, i fear this will be a longstanding moment in our history with regards to policy. I would like to let everyone know that the convention is the convention of States Movement is occurring. Article five is making noise around the nation and as i think it is something to take watch as right now is the time when things are being said and becoming firm for where we are headed. Host for those who are not familiar with what youre talking about, quickly explain what it is. Caller specifically, just where people are gathering together to apply to the date legislators for nautical five convention of states as they are for an Article Five Convention states. I will call it a Constitutional Convention at this moment, some people will understand more kind of, in their own dictates what it is. However, i will raise the point now that an article five has never happened and when the articles of confederation was amended, it was done rightfully and then was changed. And many things in the United States constitution were in the articles of confederation. Host that is daniel in bloomington, indiana. We are talking for the first 45 minutes about the Defense Department budget, some of the billions of dollars of increase that the president is seeking in that budget. Wade in colorado springs, wayne in colorado springs, colorado. Life for democrats. Wayne, good morning. Caller i have a question about the war on terror as opposed to kind of alleviating and working toward alleviating that that problem. Im wondering what is really being done in the Budget Proposals to empower women in these mother these muslim extreme countries . And also, what are we doing to promote secularism . Because religious extremism is part of the problem, whether it be islamic extremism extremism in religion is a problem and we need to address that. Any ideas or suggestions on what we are doing in that fashion . Host it is something we can talk about later in todays show. We have two members of congress, one of which sits on the Budget Committee and goes through the budget request. We can ask him about it, that is built escrow from new jersey. Bill escrow from new jersey Bill Pascrell from new jersey and also later with Raul Labrador. I want to get your take. Here is a chart on the budget request they came out yesterday from usa today. The total request just under 4 trillion, 3. 99 trillion. The expected receipts in fiscal 2015 is 3. 53 trillion which leaves a deficit of 474 billion. There is also a chart of projected deficits since president obama took office. You can see at the start his first budget was about 1. 4 . 2 trillion dropping to the 474 billion 1. 412 trillion and dropping to the 474 billion. Speaker boehner said, like the present previous budgets, this plan never balances ever. As we said, the papers today noting what area of possible agreement on this budget is some of the military spending, some of the increases for military spending. We want to do your thoughts on that. Potentially 485 billion chunk of the 2016 budget. A special line for those active and retired military. Willy is waiting on aligning colorado. Caller good morning. Heres my problem. I think half the problem, with cutting the number of military which is to a pretty unsafe number is they use Political Correctness to cut. Number one, there are far many far too many admirals and generals that there needs to be. And number two the women in the military. I dont want to stomach a neanderthal. Sound like a neanderthal. When i first went into the murdering core everyone was considered a rifleman, no matter what your military specialty was, you were considering they rifleman you were considered a rifleman. Now you have a whole group that are counted as heads, but are not combat ready. That would be my comment. They use host go ahead, willie. If you have more to say, go ahead. Caller if they used discretion as opposed to political correct this to set up the military, it would function a lot better. People may ask if this is working i mean, the number of rapes alone in the military have quadrupled. That is my comment. Host willie in colorado. Billy is on the line from independents. Good morning. Caller i feel like theyre going to need the money, because in this program right now, most of the time people believe rates are between men and women, which is not true. Great rape is a power movement. And you have program were a lot of straight men and gave men were raped with i a lot of other straight and gay men. I think the dot needs to have somebody go through it and really revamp it. Youve got too many fat old white generals running the place, and they have no clue what is going on. I appreciate your show. Host billy in miami, florida. Willy before him brought up the size of the active duty military force. Under this proposed budget for the army, it would cut the army to an active duty force of 475,000 soldiers, down from a previously proposed reduction of 490,000 following the end of the iraq and afghanistan wars. Those numbers courtesy of the New York Times as they go through the Budget Proposal. We are asking our viewers on the ir take on specifically the Budget Proposal for defense. Another possible round of base closures is underway. This is from usa today. A few of the pieces of the dods budget by. Robert budget high. Budget pie. Robert is next. On the line for democrats from oklahoma. Caller i do think they need to be upgraded. As far as troop strength, i dont think now is the time with hostilities all over the world with islamic terrorism breaking out all over the world, i dont think now is a smart time to reduce our fighting force. Thank you very much. Host before you go, as far as our warbirds aging, which ones are you concerned about . Caller the attack aircraft. The atm, it has been up there for a long time. Although it is based on a good airframe with titanium and stuff, i think we need something better. To replace that with something that is little more agile and with as much fire power as that present time. Host would you be in favor of retiring that now or having it stick around for a while specifically the a10 . Caller i would like to see it stick around until theres something better. Host did you fly or is this just a topic you are interested about . Caller no, i try to keep up with the military and our fighting force and stuff. I think it is very important. I go with the adage, walk softly but carry a big stick. Host specifically on the a10, congressman congresswoman nick sally freshman congresswoman mcsally was talking about the a10 yesterday. That is Martha Mcsally in her statement yesterday about specifically that part of the Defense Budget. We are happy to talk about any of the Defense Budget, the pay raises for the military, rounds of base closures, or other bigticket items that are on this budget. There will be 16 p eight Maritime Patrol aircraft if this goes into effect. Those stats compiled by defense one, if you want to see their reporting on it. We are taking your comments and calls. Cornell is up next from new jersey on the line from democrats. For democrats. Cornell, are you with us this morning . Caller good morning. No, i dont agree with them increasing the Defense Budget because we have spent 10 times more on defense than our closest competitor. The only problem is when you increase the Defense Budget, the only ones that make out are the lobbyists and the contractors that siphon and a bottom feeders who take from the american taxpayers. The bottom line is, ive been paying into Social Security for over 21 years onto jobs on two jobs. Now, most americans pay into Social Security, but they want to increase defense spending because the lobbyists and the contractors, like bechtel and halliburton and the bottom line is when george bush senior, and im talking about the father, they asked him why he did not go into baghdad. He said, if he would have kept going any further, we would have been in there for life. And the problem is and for that reason, theyve been fighting for centuries. You get into too many factions. And we are into something where we are constantly pouring money into lobbyists and contractorss pockets at the american taxpayers expense. Host all right, that is cornell in waterworks, new jersey. In mentioning spending by our closest competitors around the world, here is one story today in the Washington Post about that in china. It was reported by what is in overenthusiastic local Government Official command and subsequently deleted on websites. Lets go to walk robert woodbridge, news virginia woodbridge virginia next. Robert is an independent. Good morning. Caller good morning, sir. I appreciate you taking my call. Im opposed to the downsizing of the military. You cant run a war without combat arms. With all the stuff going on now with them cutting off heads with isil and all of the crackling on in the middle east, this is the time to downsize the military . Its ridiculous. Im just wondering if the leadership is trying to purposely sacrifice our military. Host a few tweaks on this topic as well this morning. That conversation a few tweeets on this topic as well as morning. Don is up next, henderson nevada, our line forward to vote in our line for republicans. Good morning. Caller good morning. I support our present president 150 on the Defense Budget. Host we will hear from the president can actually. He spoke a little yesterday on his positions on the Defense Budget and his proposal. Here he is at the department of Homeland Security yesterday. [video clip] my budget will in the cuts and fully reverse the priorities in 2016, and it will match the investments made domestically dollar for dollar with increases in our defense spending defense funding. Just last week, top military officials told congress that if congress does nothing to stop sequestration there could be serious consequences for our National Security. At a time when our military is stretched on a range of issues. That is why want to work with congress to replace my list austerity with smart investment mindless austerity with smart investment and in a way that strengthens america. We can do so in it with as fully responsible. I will not just be in lockstep sequestration going forward. It would be bad for security. I will not sever the vital link between our International Security and our economic security. There are some a capital who say they would be willing to increase defense spending, but not investment in infrastructure , for example, or basic research. Well those two things go handinhand. If we dont have vital infrastructure, if we dont have broadband across the country, if we dont have a smart grid come all of that makes us more vulnerable. Host that was the president yesterday talking about the Defense Budget. We want to hear from you on this mornings washington journal. Entree is up next. Caller good morning. Thanks for taking my call. I feel we need to educate the american populace in regard to how much we spend on defense spending in regards to the rest of the world. And how are they should how absurd it is for us to think we are any safer as it relates to a terrorist attack he needed out on our soil. Its more likely you would your head in the bathtub or to be struck by lightning than to be killed by a terrorist. The hysteria surrounding defense is foolish. If we look at our infrastructure and if we look at the contractors in the military generals who benefit as a relates to the kickback that they get from the contractors, to push this