Posted on 05/18/2015 10:34:54 AM PDT by Kaslin
On Friday, the House passed a massive National Defense Authorization for 2016 that will guarantee U.S. involvement in more wars and overseas interventions for years to come. The Republican majority resorted to trickery to evade the meager spending limitations imposed by the 2011 budget control act - limitations that did not, as often reported, cut military spending but only slowed its growth.
But not even slower growth is enough when you have an empire to maintain worldwide, so the House majority slipped into the military spending bill an extra $89 billion for an emergency war fund. Such "emergency" spending is not addressed in the growth caps placed on the military under the 2011 budget control act. It is a loophole filled by Congress with Fed-printed money.
Ironically, a good deal of this "emergency" money will go to President Obama's war on ISIS even though neither the House nor the Senate has debated - let alone authorized - that war! Although House leadership allowed 135 amendments to the defense bill - with many on minor issues like regulations on fire hoses - an effort by a small group of Representatives to introduce an amendment to debate the current U.S. war in Iraq and Syria was rejected.
While squashing debate on ongoing but unauthorized wars, the bill also pushed the administration toward new conflicts. Despite the president's unwise decision to send hundreds of U.S. military trainers to Ukraine, a move that threatens the current shaky ceasefire, Congress wants even more U.S. involvement in Ukraine's internal affairs. The military spending bill included $300 million to directly arm the Ukrainian government even as Ukrainian leaders threaten to again attack the breakaway regions in the east. Does Congress really think U.S.-supplied weapons killing ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine is a good idea?
The defense authorization bill also seeks to send yet more weapons into Iraq. This time the House wants to send weapons directly to the Kurds in northern Iraq without the approval of the Iraqi government. Although these weapons are supposed to be used to fight ISIS, we know from too many prior examples that they often find their way into the hands of the very people we are fighting. Also, arming an ethnic group seeking to break away from Baghdad and form a new state is an unwise infringement of the sovereignty of Iraq. It is one thing to endorse the idea of secession as a way to reduce the possibility of violence, but it is quite something else to arm one side and implicitly back its demands.
While the neocons keep pushing the lie that the military budget is shrinking under the Obama Administration, the opposite is true. As the CATO Institute pointed out recently, President George W. Bush's average defense budget was $601 billion, while during the Obama administration the average has been $687 billion. This bill is just another example of this unhealthy trend.
Next year's military spending plan keeps the U.S. on track toward destruction of its economy at home while provoking new resentment over U.S. interventionism overseas. It is a recipe for disaster. Let's hope for either a presidential veto, or that on final passage Congress rejects this bad bill.
Can they use that $89 billion to build more A-10s and give them to the proper services - the Marines and Army?
Nothing is ever cut.
I’m all for a very strong miltary but I have the feeling that if a serious auditor and a military man with our best interests at heart went in there and cleaned things up we could save a hundred billion easy. Also how many more weapons are going to end up in the hands of our enemies. Not just guns but the big stuff.. and if we are going to spend this amount, that is fine with me if we’re cutting in other areas. Like welfare section 8 snap immigrant schooling three squares a day for the kids you name it. plus it would be nice to protect the borders with some of that money just for laughs. or who knows I could be wrong on all of that.
So much of that money ends up going for things besides actual combat readiness that it is not a good measure of military strength. It’s not the $$, it is what you get for it.
And we could probably cut welfare spending in half without even touching the benefits too
I believe 100 percent that you are right. I’ve also read that one out of every five federal workers spend their day working for the Union instead of doing their job. But that can’t be right because Nancy Pelosi said there’s no room to cut anymore \s
lol
Leftists are funny like that.
What we need is a Box on our tax form that we can use to determine how much of our individual tax money goes where....
Tax Form 1040A
BOX #1776
In the following section below mark which percentage in increments of 5 of where you want your money to go to:
Example:
Welfare: 0
Social Security: 0
Millitary: 80
Border Control: 15
Space Exploration: 5
Have it be limited to say 20 categories and make it be money that not even congress or the executive can re-direct!
I think the libs would crap a rather large brick should a system like this come to pass.
Every year the people pick the baseline budget on April 15th.
Oh and the government agencies would be forbidden to advertise to ask for your percentages!
Right now if you do not spend every single cent you are allotted they cut your funding next year. There is no incentive to save money and every incentive to go on a buying spree of usually useless crap at the end of the fiscal year.
We have warehouses of 5.25 inch floppies that never have been and never will be used because someone had to spend it on something.
Those same departments could have used that money in some other productive way later on.
It’s too bad Ron Paul’s intelligence isn’t being used for sane purposes.
***President George W. Bush’s average defense budget was $601 billion, while during the Obama administration the average has been $687 billion. ***
That is because Obama has fired up the printing presses printing lots of “funny money” and devaluing the paper dollar making them worth less.
I bet you cannot buy one item more with his 687 billion than you could with George Bush’s 601 billion.
We could probably cut welfare more than just half, the problem though is the rats need them
That is the most absurd things I’ve ever heard. Dynamics change from year to year, just as in any business (and the government should have never been a business in the first place)
I bet we could slash EVERY department by 20 percent and they wouldn’t miss it. And that’s a kind estimate.
With revenues of 3.4 trillion, the budget is 3.9 trillion. Stage ring numbers!! BUT if we cut everything by 15 percent, the deficit would be eliminated.
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