Remember this bullshit the next time someone decides to put the words “national” and “security” in the same sentence to describe the grift that is our defense budget.
Covid death rates are at record highs, scores of people are on the verge of eviction, lines for food are stretching for miles, congress hasn’t given people and small businesses relief in over half a year, the Trump administration didn’t buy enough vaccines to save money…
But don’t worry! We’re on the verge of approving three quarters of a trillion dollars to our defense budget. I’m sure with a price tag that big, this bill should cover every threat that faces our homeland!
Which part of the budget would you prefer to cut, specifically?
Not sarcastic, this is a sincere question. Trim back the acquisition budget (i.e., fewer warships?) Less maintenance? No salary raise? (the 3 percent annual raise is indeed higher than what many private-sector people get)
It’s also surprising that AOC, Tlaib, Omar, etc. haven’t turned this into a hill to die on, or made more of a fight on it.
In the short-term, the more hypocritical part of this is that the no-expense-spared mentality isn’t being applied to a national security threat that has already killed hundreds of thousands of Americans. We should be spending trillions on a stimulus bill without even worrying about the cost. And we should at the very least have bought as many vaccines as we can get. Long-term, I want to see a much smaller military budget, but that would essentially be a side effect of not being involved with so many countries around the world, letting some of our allies get to take more of a lead in their regional defense needs. And especially walking back the expanded scope of our military that occurred after 9/11. Also, while it’s a very imperfect solution, I was fine with the sequester cuts.
BTW, Tlaib did come out against it. My guess would be they are going to focus more of their energy on everything going on around the pandemic for obvious reasons.
Sure. How many warships do we actually need? How many tanks?
Especially with the idea that NATO members should be providing for their own defense, and the US should no longer be acting as the world’s police force, with the desire expressed by the president to pull out of the involvements that we are in, do we really need the size of military that we have?
And less materiel is less that needs maintenance. A smaller standing military is fewer people to give raises to.
The reality is that the military is the biggest entitlement program the US has. It provides income for people all over the country and all over the world, some of them who are actually soldiers. So, if you don’t pass the budget, the economy takes a bigger hit because of all of those people who are dependent on those government handouts.
But, I would prefer that that was admitted. If we said that Lima, Ohio needs jobs, and that is why we need to build tanks, then we can work with that. Maybe we could build something else there, maybe we can do some sort of jobs program.
But when it is stated that we need tanks, even though we don’t really, because if we don’t build those tanks then the people of Lima, Ohio get laid off, then that is not an honest way to discuss the budget.
It actually is an argument made by Trump. That’s why I said “with the idea that”, not that it is something that I subscribe to. I even mentioned the president in that very same sentence. Just because chose not to quote it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t provide context that could have cleared up your confusion.
The question here, is if the Republicans think that NATO should go it on their own, then why do we need to fund our military to continue to be a world police force?