Money for the Wrong Something (Annotated)
[dropcap]T[/dropcap]his writer has been writing tirelessly on the ( obscene) fact that over half of our federal taxes goes down the rabbit hole of military spending. Well, writer and researcher Andre Damon of the World Socialist Website just wrote a piece on July 1st on this very subject. He stated that under phony populist demagogue Trump the Senate ( with the help of 36 Democrats ) passed the largest ever Pentagon budget. Taking over from Democrat Obama, where under his watch the said budgets even surpassed the ones under the war mongering Bush/Cheney cabal, 'The hits just keep on comin!' From the $ 619 billion in 2016 to $700 billion in 2017 to the $716 billion in 2018 to...drum roll please... $750 billion passed last Thursday. This now makes military spending AKA Defense spending (has a better ' secure our borders' flavor to it, yes?) accounting for... drum roll again... around 60% of the federal budget!
Imagine if you will that if just 25% of that money immediately went for things like A) Jumpstarting full Medicare for All with no need for buying supplemental private add on insurance Which Path to National Improved Medicare for All? ← ) B) Fixing our roads, bridges, power distribution below ground like in Europe, and money to sure up coastal areas to stand up to hurricanes better; C) Having an Amtrak to rival the railroad travel and accessibility that the Europeans have had for generations; D) Begin to institute public banking whereupon , with low or non profit, the consumer will save immeasurably. The Public Banking Revolution Is Upon Us by Ellen Brown
SIDEBAR
Comment by Patrice Greanville
Among the many idiocies and crimes that Trump has already committed in his short tenure, all with the tacit or active support of Democrats, the increase of $54 bn on the official Pentagon budget, already a bloated infamy, must count as one of his most eloquent signatures. This grotesque and clearly unneeded addition to the Orwellian-named official "defense" budget (obviously only a fraction of what the US really spends for global imperial defense and mostly offense, as the US is known for having numerous secret accounts channeling money and resources through various agencies and cutouts to what can only be defined as "military" or "war" operations against other nations) prompted criticism from liberals, but this criticism remained carefully constrained to their usual Never Trumper groove, neglecting mention of the Democrats' complicity in such matters. As part of the liberal pack, Mother Jones also commented on the topic. This article by Dave Gilson (March 1, 2017) is a good exposition of Trump's rank pandering to the MIC, from which I have excerpted the following:
Why Trump’s Military Budget Boost Doesn’t Add Up
The Pentagon is spending more than it did in Vietnam. But here’s another $54 billion.
Trump campaigned on a promise to increase the Pentagon’s budget and reverse the Obama administration’s alleged “hollowing out” of the military. Yet a look at the numbers shows that while military spending has been decreasing due to bipartisan budget caps and the drawdown of American forces in Afghanistan and Iraq, the Defense Department is still getting more money than it has at any time since the end of World War II. Its 2016 budget was more than $600 billion. In 1968, at the height of the Vietnam War, it was $569 billion (in current dollars).
![](https://www.motherjones.com/wp-content/uploads/finalsinceWWII.png)
And while Trump says increased military spending will reassert America’s strength, the United States already is the world’s 800-pound gorilla. In 2015, it was responsible for more than one third of all military spending on the planet. China and Russia, the United States’ main military competitors, don’t even come close.
While $54 billion would represent a more than 10 percent increase in the base military budget (which doesn’t include the extra money it receives for overseas operations), it’s massive compared to what the federal government spends on many social, science, environmental, and cultural programs—some of which could be on the chopping block. The Trump administration has reportedly been eyeing the National Endowment of the Arts and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting for elimination and privatization, respectively. The combined budgets of those two agencies was $593 million in 2016—or 0.98 percent of all defense spending.
![](https://www.motherjones.com/wp-content/uploads/finalbudget-cpb.png)
Meanwhile, the Pentagon’s books are such a mess that it has never been audited, and the Government Accountability Office has repeatedly (though politely) criticized it for its “long-standing financial management deficiencies.” Even as Trump talks about shaking things up in Washington, DC, his budget plans reveal that he won’t challenge a costly budgetary tradition: giving the Pentagon a pass.
It should be noted that while Gilson properly decries the cuts to the EPA, for example, and the possible attacks on public broadcasting, already sbstantially hobbled by stingy budgets and increasing reliance on rightwing billionaires and megacorporations, equal tears do not apply to other departments such as State and USAID, often far more engaged in advancing imperialist designs than their supposedly harmless mandates.
—PG
To put things into perspective, according to Andre Damon, Russia's annual military budget is $ 61 billion, and they sure as hell kept our USA wolf from overtaking Syria and Venezuela! He goes on to report that the Democratic controlled House of Representatives is only proposing a $ 733 billion Pentagon budget. That's some Green Deal hah? One surmises that most of those new Dems, you know the myriad of ex military and CIA folks, must have joined with their bipartisan colleagues to keep the money rolling into the War Economy and OUT of the Green Economy. When will Sanders and AOC and the handful of true progressives walk away from that corruption? What in the hell good is it to belong to a party that may win elections, and then do as little as possible to help we working stiffs... AND make the world a little less crazy. Duh, it's called ' Lead by example'! As far as the other and much more ruthless party, they are far beyond help. Yet, half of the voting suckers choose them for a myriad of reasons... yet never to save their working stiff asses! So sad this country that I love.
PA Farruggio
July 3rd, 2019
Philip A Farruggio is a contributing editor for The Greanville Post. He is also frequently posted on Global Research, Nation of Change, World News Trust and Off Guardian sites. He is the son and grandson of Brooklyn NYC longshoremen and a graduate of Brooklyn College, class of 1974. Since the 2000 election debacle Philip has written over 300 columns on the Military Industrial Empire and other facets of life in an upside down America. He is also host of the ' It's the Empire... Stupid ' radio show, co produced by Chuck Gregory. Philip can be reached at paf1222@bellsouth.net.
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