By Noah Shachtman
Give the boys in the Pentagon credit; they've got chutzpah. While the federal government hemorrhages money -- and everyone from Goldman Sachs to General Motors to the city of Philadelphia is looking for more Washington cash -- the Defense Department is getting ready to ask for its biggest budget yet. The Pentagon is telling the Obama transition team that it wants $581 billion for the next fiscal year, an increase of $67 billion. And that doesn't even count cash needed to pay for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The cash request 'includes $524 billion in spending authority approved by the White House Office of Management and Budget this spring... as well as $57 billion in additional needs the Office of the Secretary of Defense identified over the summer,' reports Inside Defense.
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