Today's Washington Times posted an article on a study showing how some of the money appropriated for guns and ammunition for our troops is actually being spent. There are $2.6 billion being put into pet projects. The money was largely taken from accounts that pay for fuel, ammunition and
According to the article, some of the projects include:
"$25 million for a new World War II museum at the University of New Orleans and $20 million to launch an educational institute named after the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, Massachusetts Democrat."
The study was conducted by Winslow Wheeler, a former Senate staffer who worked on defense funding and oversight for both Republicans and Democrats. He is now a senior fellow at the Center for Defense Information, an independent research organization.
The article reports:
"Mr. Wheeler said that senators took most of the cash for the projects from the "operations and maintenance" or O&M accounts.
"These are the accounts that pay for troop training, repairs, spares and supplies for
vehicles , weapons, ships and planes, food and fuel," Mr. Wheeler said."
There is already a privately-funded World War II museum in New Orleans. It is a fantastic musuem--I have been there. There is no need to put a publicly funded museum of the same time period in the same place. There is not a problem with an educational institute named after Senator Kennedy, but why does it have to be publicly funded at the expense of our soldiers?
We are fighting a war in Afghanistan. If Congress continues to take money away from that war effort, our chances of actually winning it will decrease substantially.
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