Obama's Budget to Include $7 Billion to Maintain Nuclear Stockpiles

Obama's budget will be revealed on Monday. In a Wall Street Journal op-ed, Joe Biden said there will be $7 billion included in the budget to maintain our existing nuclear stockpiles.

GovExec: The added funding will help strengthen the United States' ability to recruit, train and retain skilled people, support the work of nuclear labs, and clean up and close down facilities that are no longer needed, the column said. The request comes as the Pentagon is completing its Nuclear Posture Review, which will be released March 1.

An excerpt from Joe's op-ed:

For almost a decade, our laboratories and facilities have been underfunded and undervalued. The consequences of this neglect—like the growing shortage of skilled nuclear scientists and engineers and the aging of critical facilities—have largely escaped public notice. Last year, the Strategic Posture Commission led by former Defense Secretaries William Perry and James Schlesinger warned that our nuclear complex requires urgent attention. We agree.

The budget we will submit to Congress on Monday both reverses this decline and enables us to implement the president's nuclear-security agenda. These goals are intertwined. The same skilled nuclear experts who maintain our arsenal play a key role in guaranteeing our country's security now and for the future. State-of-the art facilities, and highly trained and motivated people, allow us to maintain our arsenal without testing. They will help meet the president's goal of securing vulnerable nuclear materials world-wide in the coming years, and enable us to track and thwart nuclear trafficking, verify weapons reductions, and to develop tomorrow's cutting-edge technologies for our security and prosperity.

To achieve these goals, our budget devotes $7 billion for maintaining our nuclear-weapons stockpile and complex, and for related efforts. This commitment is $600 million more than Congress approved last year. And over the next five years we intend to boost funding for these important activities by more than $5 billion. Even in a time of tough budget decisions, these are investments we must make for our security. We are committed to working with Congress to ensure these budget increases are approved. WSJ

Sam Nunn's Effort to Shore Up Loose Nukes-New Movie

Sam Nunn's new FREE documentary: Watch Nuclear Tipping Point here. Obama has been working on shoring up loose nukes even before he was president. Nunn also explains what it takes to repeal Don't Ask Don't Tell.

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Here is the movie trailer:

Ben Rhodes Speaks on Foreign Policy

Obama's Arrival in South Korea Nov. 18

Tonight, Obama meets with President Lee Myung-bak. Obama will speak to troops in S. Korea at 1:20 am eastern. He arrives back in DC tomorrow.

Obama Speaks at United Nations Sept. 23

Read the transcript here.
Michelle Obama meets up with Obama today in New York. Later Obama will meet Prime Minister Hatoyama of Japan, participate in a wreath laying ceremony at 1 pm eastern and meet with Russia's Medvedev.

Lugar: One of Obama's Republican Pals

Republicans spend so much time smearing Obama for people who have nothing to do with his campaign. Here's an example of someone who Obama really palls around with.

MSNBC: Dick Lugar may not be a household name, but he's well known within international security circles. And he's famous to world leaders who are trying to protect their countries from nuclear attack.

In 1991, Lugar teamed up with Sam Nunn, then a Democratic senator, to create a program aimed at securing and dismantling the nuclear, chemical and biological weapons inside the former Soviet Union.

And it was a success. The Nunn-Lugar Act facilitated the destruction of more than 700 intercontinental ballistic missiles and the deactivation of some 7,000 nuclear warheads.

Obama would later find a way to link his name to this legislation — connecting himself to its authors’ global security efforts.

Fighting loose nukes together
As a candidate for U.S. Senate in 2004, Obama frequently spoke of the need to keep “loose nukes” out the hands of terrorists and rogue nations. He often cited the accomplishments of the Nunn-Lugar Act. And that caught the Indiana senator’s attention.

The day after Obama was elected to the Senate, Lugar wrote him a letter. At the time, he was the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee and advised Obama to ask the Democratic leadership for a spot on panel.

Obama's other pals: Austan Goolsbee. Chuck Hagel and Jack Reed. Here's a whole slew of Obama's advisers. Here are Obama's top economic advisers.
Meanwhile, McCain's advisers are peeps like this.