Tag: Budget

The One DOGE Missed

The now infamous DOGE is raising all kinds of chaos in DC….but the one place that needs slimming down and budget cuts is somehow missing from the long list of targets.

CDC slashed to the bone, IRS being attacked, Social Security under a cloud, etc etc….but what about the one department with the most obscene budget and little to no oversight…..the War Department?

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said Monday that the Pentagon will soon have its first $1 trillion budget despite the Trump administration’s pledges to cut government spending.

Hegseth made the announcement on X while sharing a video of President Trump saying that his administration approved a plan for a $1 trillion military budget. “Nobody’s seen anything like it. We have to build out military, and we’re very cost-conscious, but the military is something we have to build, and we have to be strong,” he said while hosting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Trump said he was “proud to say” it will be the biggest military budget “we’ve ever done.”

Hegseth wrote on X, “Thank you Mr. President! COMING SOON: the first TRILLION dollar [Defense Department] budget.”

Hegseth said the Pentagon would “spend every taxpayer dollar wisely,” but he is currently overseeing a massive bombing campaign in Yemen that’s failed to achieve its stated goal of stopping Houthi attacks and will soon cost over $1 billion in just a month of operations.

While the Pentagon has never had a $1 trillion budget, the actual cost of total US military spending has exceeded $1 trillion for years.

The 2025 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which President Biden signed into law in December 2023, totaled $895 billion. According to veteran defense analyst Winslow Wheeler, based on the $895 billion NDAA, US national security spending for 2025 is expected to reach about $1.77 trillion.

Wheeler’s estimate accounts for military-related spending from other government agencies not funded by the NDAA, such as the Department of Veteran Affairs and Homeland Security. It also includes the national security share of the interest accrued on the US debt and other factors.

Trump and Hegseth’s comments suggest the president will request a $1 trillion NDAA for 2026, which would really bring total US military spending close to $2 trillion.

(antiwar.com)

Seriously?

This is obscene…..this is pathetic…..this is stupid.

Does this country need to spend $2 trillion on war prep?

I think not!

Thoughts?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

War Department Makes It Big!

I know some think I spend too much time writing about the War Department and its stranglehold on the Congress and budget…..maybe so but how else will readers learn what is being done with their money.  (Apparently too many could care less)

After weeks of negotiations the House and Biden come to a deal….the shit show went on and on…..and yet there is NO negotiations on the budget for the War Department. Why?

The debt ceiling agreement reached between the White House and House Republicans that was announced Sunday caps military spending at $886 billion for 2024, matching President Biden’s requested budget.

Republicans negotiating the debt ceiling deal only sought non-military spending cuts. The $886 billion cap for military spending represents about a 3.3% increase from 2023.

The White House and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) still need to get the debt ceiling agreement passed through Congress. Many hawkish Republicans will likely oppose the deal as they previously blasted Biden’s massive $886 billion request as “inadequate.”

Hawks in Congress have gotten their way over the past two years as they approved significantly more military spending than what President Biden requested for 2022 and 2023. For 2023, President Biden asked for $813 billion in military spending, but Congress added $45 billion, bringing the finalized National Defense Authorization Act to $858 billion.

A similar increase for 2024 could bring the NDAA close to $1 trillion. The US also authorizes other national security spending that is not included in the NDAA. According to analyst Winslow Wheeler, factoring in other types of expenditures on the national security state, including interest on debt and the Veteran Affairs budget, would bring the total defense budget for 2024 to around $1.5 trillion.

(antiwar.com)

Why is this framed as the price for freedom?

Why are poor and retired Americans having to foot the bill for the debt….war has added more to the debt than anything else and yet it is sacred and cannot be altered.

Why?

Then there is this Ukraine thing….

Dems are proving to be more pro war than the GOP (a scary thought)…..

Several members of the Democrat Party in Congress are urging the White House to provide Kiev with significantly more military support. One representative wants the Joe Biden administration to place “non-combatant observers” on the ground in Ukraine. 

Rep. Jason Crow (D-CO) called for long-term investment in modernizing Ukraine’s military. He believes the upgraded weapons will turn the country into a “porcupine that can’t be swallowed.” 

One suggestion Crow made was sending non-combatant observers to the battlefield to learn “through direct observation and communication with Ukrainian forces.” Crow did not specify if the personnel would come from the CIA, Pentagon or another agency. However, deploying any Americans on the battlefield risks them being killed by Russian soldiers. 

Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI), chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee, along with Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) and Richard Blumenthal (D-CN), are backing a plan that would send ATACM missiles to Ukraine.

https://libertarianinstitute.org/news/democrats-in-congress-demand-more-aggressive-ukraine-policy/

The blood money paid to Congress by the industry ensures that they continue to make war and make money….

The debt ceiling agreement reached between the White House and House Republicans places no constraints on spending on the war in Ukraine, a White House official told Bloomberg.

The $113 billion that has been authorized to spend on the war in Ukraine so far was passed as supplemental emergency funds, which is exempt from the spending caps that are part of the debt ceiling deal.

According to the Congressional Budget Office, funding “designated as an emergency requirement or for overseas contingency operations would not be constrained, and certain other funding would not be subject to the caps.” The deal suspends the nation’s debt limit through January 1, 2025.

Hawks in Congress are looking to use emergency spending to increase the $886 billion military budget that was agreed to as part of the deal. The emergency funds could go beyond Ukraine and might be used to send weapons to Taiwan or for other spending that hawks favor as part of their strategy against China.

(antiwar.com)

….all the while the poor and those in need will have to suffer to keep the war drums beating and profitable.

And as always I ask the same question….what does the US hope to gain from our massive investment in Ukraine?  (Not to worry it will go unanswered)

This whole debt thing is just goddamn pathetic.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Ever Wonder Where The Money Goes?

I know most people walk around in a haze and believe the hype that is spread by the War Department on the need for more and more cash…..

So keeping with my attempts to be an FYI blog I offer this info on the Pentagon budget…..if you care where your tax dollars go then you might want to read this carefully and decide if it is money well spent.

This will give my reader an idea of just how much money is being spent under the guise of defense and where these dollars will go.

Now that I have your attention let us look at how the media plays into to censorship of information around our War Department and our lust for war…..

If I have peaked your interest then by all means read on…..

On January 17, 1961, outgoing President and former Supreme Allied Commander Dwight D. Eisenhower gave one of the most consequential speeches in American history. Eisenhower for eight years had been a popular president, whose appeal drew upon a reputation as a person of great personal fortitude, who’d guided the United States to victory in an existential fight for survival in World War II. Nonetheless, as he prepared to vacate the Oval Office for handsome young John F. Kennedy, he warned the country it was now at the mercy of a power even he could not overcome. 

Until World War II, America had no permanent arms manufacturing industry. Now it did, and this new sector, Eisenhower said, was building up around itself a cultural, financial, and political support system accruing enormous power. This “conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience,” he said, adding:

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. 

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes… Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together. 

This was the direst of warnings, but the address has tended in the popular press to be ignored. After sixty-plus years, most of America – including most of the American left, which traditionally focused the most on this issue – has lost its fear that our arms industry might conquer democracy from within. 

https://www.racket.news/p/report-on-the-censorship-industrial-74b

Keep an eye on the news….there may be a request for even more cash for Ukraine by mid-Summer….

The last massive aid package Congress authorized for Ukraine has about $6 billion left, which is expected to be used up by mid-summer, POLITICO reported Monday.

So far, the US has authorized about $113 billion in spending on the war in Ukraine, which includes military aid, direct budgetary aid, training, funding for US troop deployments in Eastern Europe, and other types of assistance.

Once the final $6 billion dries up, the Pentagon won’t be able to ship more weapons to Ukraine. That means the White House is expected to ask Congress to authorize more spending on the war soon.

A senior Biden administration official told POLITICO that the White House is discussing a new package and is going to time it so the weapons can keep flowing to Ukraine. The official said the administration is “fully committed” to supporting Kyiv in the war “for the long haul.”

The POLITICO report said that massive aid packages for Ukraine might not be as easy to ram through Congress as they were before, citing the debate over the debt ceiling and dissent from a small but significant group of Republicans. But the majority of Republicans support arming Ukraine, including GOP leadership, who have been critical of President Biden for not sending longer-range weapons and fighter jets.

“Although there are dissenting voices, the large majority of certainly Republicans — for sure in the Senate and arguably in the House as well — believe strongly that we need Ukraine to win and that the outcome there is something that matters not only to that region, but to the United States and our national security interests,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC).

On the Democrat side, there is virtually no opposition to arming Ukraine. While there’s still strong support in Congress for arming Ukraine, hawks in Washington are concerned it could decline if Ukraine’s long-awaited counteroffensive fails.

(antiwar.com)

For god sake please pull your head out of the proverbial sand pile….or better yet out of your ass.

Be Smart!

Learn Stuff!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Pentagon: The Dash For Dollars

I have tried to point out the fallacies in some of the reports that we are given and that are given to Congress by the Pentagon…..I realize that the entire planet is freaking out over the prospect of terrorism…..that is a logical reaction to what is happening elsewhere in this world…..but the Pentagon is using that concern to get a bigger budget and that budget will be used for more war….more death…..more deployments and more destruction……

The Defense Department is going to Congress to sell their predictions in the dash for more dollars…….

No specific, credible intelligence is an ongoing theme with US officials when warning about ISIS possibly doing something, but the absence of evidence isn’t going to stop the top Intelligence officials, testifying to Congress, from hyping the threat.

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, still in power despite lying to Congress in previous testimony on the NSA, talked up the idea that ISIS is sneaking into the US is refugees, even though this allegation has repeatedly been shot down as totally unfounded.  (This ought to make the neocons happy…..they have been saying this since the idea of refugees was offered)…..

But ISIS is not their only source to push for funds…..more funds…….

Russia’s aggression in Europe — its invasion of Ukraine, its military flights up the noses of NATO states, its nuclear saber rattling — has faded from the news. But it’s still very much a threat, which is why the US is planning to quadruple its military spending in Europe, something NATO’s European members have welcomed, to deter Russia.

Source: The risk of an unintended war with Russia in Europe, explained in one map – Vox

The early Pentagon budget talk emphasized the ISIS war in Iraq and Syria, though the money sought for this was ultimately dwarfed by money requested to prepare for potential wars against Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran in 2017….

Ultimately, the specifics don’t matter a lot for these speculative wars anyhow, as the Pentagon seeks to get them into the Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) budget, which Pentagon brass is able to shuffle around with few restrictions, meaning whatever the excuse, the money is ultimately a big slush fund for the Pentagon to spend on whatever seems interesting to them at the time.

Be prepared my friends for more conflicts and more use of American military might…….and ultimately…..more troops…..

Where will this spiral end?

Wait! There Is A ‘People’s Budget’?

These days in Washington there is enough BS flowing in the streets to keep all us politicos writing for months……and then there is the budget debacle…..Repubs have one…Dems have one…..Pres has one…..everybody has a budget,,,,,but the one that is seldom mentioned is the one that has been offered up for consideration from the Congressional Progressive Caucus….it is called the People’s Budget…..

The CPC proposal:

• Eliminates the deficits and creates a surplus by 2021
• Puts America back to work with a “Make it in America” jobs program
• Protects the social safety net
• Ends the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq
• Is FAIR (Fixing America’s Inequality Responsibly)

What the proposal accomplishes:

• Primary budget balance by 2014.
• Budget surplus by 2021.
• Reduces public debt as a share of GDP to 64.1% by 2021, down 16.5 percentage points from
a baseline fully adjusted for both the doc fix and the AMT patch.
• Reduces deficits by $5.6 trillion over 2012-21, relative to this adjusted baseline.
• Outlays equal to 22.2% of GDP and revenue equal 22.3% of GDP by 2021.

It is an interesting document and well worth some real attention….read it for yourself…..

Read the People’s Budget

Read The Technical Analysis by the Economic Policy Institute (External Link)

There seems to be a wealth of proposals out there to help out our budget deficit…..and personally, would like to see them all get the light of day and let the true people of the country see which one makes the most sense and which one would do the most good…..something I know will NOT happen but one can dream…..But wait!  Does it say a balanced budget in 3 years?  Yes it does!  If I am not mistaken that is way sooner than golden boy Ryan’s proposal…..if true why does it NOT get more air time?  My guess is that it does not play well with corporate American and since they own most of the media….it will be ignored!

We can change that….how?  Tell your reps in Congress that they need to consider the CPC budget and remind them that elections are quickly approaching…….WE CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE!

The American People May Not Be In A Coma

Have you heard the news coming out of Arizona?  No!  Not the immigration thing that has everybody’s panties in a twist….I mean the sales tax thing….as reported by the LA Times:

Voters in this famously tax-averse state Tuesday night approved a temporary hike in the sales tax to stave off brutal budget cuts.

The veteran Republican had shocked many in her party last year by advocating the penny sales tax increase, arguing that the state couldn’t simply cut its way out of a deficit that rivals California’s. Critics said it was economic suicide to raise taxes in a recession.

Political observers have noted that because the governor was defying GOP orthodoxy by pushing the tax increase, she had little option but to sign the immigration bill, which is strongly supported by most Arizona voters and an overwhelming proportion of Republicans.

It seems that the American people, at least Arizonans for now, agree with me that some form of tax increases are needed to save needed programs.  The residents voted FOR the increase; this was not some sneak attack on their lives by some shady, back street deal made with politicians.

Given the facts, as best as a politician can give the facts, and the people can make a decision that effects their lives……a plus for more direct democracy.

A City’s Cost Cutting

Article for Gulf South Free Press:

The city in Mississippi, south Mississippi, has a new mayor and one of his first big deals is to eliminate unneeded cost from the city budget.  A lofty endeavor, indeed.

The word going around the city is that the new mayor will cut $3+ million from the city budget by eliminating 22 positions.  Sounds good right?  It will be a considerable savings for the city.

Okay here is something to think about…..the city of Gulfport according to the 2006 census has a population of 64, 316 people.  right, it is not a large city, but a growing one.

Now my question is what 22 positions will be eliminated and how in the hell did these people earn an average of $136,000 each?  What is the mayor’s salary?  If there are that many people earn that kind of money, then no wonder the city is always in financial chaos.

Now I ask how long has this been going on….how long have the citizens been paying outrageous salaries for little or no work completed?

Maybe the promisesd of the mayor during his campaign about working for the people of the city may be true…personally I think not…but give him the benefit of the doubt….at least he is not accused of defrauding the government….that is something.

Budget Crisis And Social Impact

In these tough economic times states are struggling with their budgets and how to find the revenue to pay for the propgrams they already have in the works.

This observation is made by Joe Kishore for wsws.org:

The crisis extends across the country. Seven states still have not passed budgets: California (budget deficit—$24 billion), Illinois ($9.2 billion), Pennsylvania ($4.8 billion), North Carolina ($4.6 billion), Connecticut ($4.1 billion), Ohio ($3.3 billion) and Mississippi ($480 million).

Of the states that still remain without a budget, several have threatened to shut down government services altogether if agreements are not reached soon. Illinois Governor Pat Quinn (a Democrat) vetoed a budget passed by the Democratic-controlled legislature that includes major attacks on social programs. Quinn favors somewhat fewer cuts, combined with an increase in the state’s regressive flat income tax. Providers of services for the mentally ill and disabled have already laid off staff in response to the budget crisis.

The crisis in the states is having a particularly dramatic impact on education, as the vast bulk of funding for public education comes from the states and from local property taxes. States across the country are already cutting or eliminating summer school programs. These programs are critical for students and for parents who have nowhere else to send their children during work hours. Summer school programs in Florida and California, among other states, have been virtually wiped out.

Of all the programs that are needed most…education is at the top of my list…our rankings in math and science are already sliding down the list…we do not need to imperil our children any further.

Once again, I see that banks and massive corporations are more important than our children….money can be found to bail out the wealthy but little to none is available to the future of our people.  Sad…no matter how you look at it.

Political Debate On Spending

As usual the commentators on the right and the left are throwing accusations around about the final product of the massive spending bills that have been passed.  Yes, it is a personal agenda.  Those on the Right say the media is in love with the Obamas and for that reason they will not report on the down side of the spending programs.  They say there is NO substantial debate on the spending.

The part I love is that, for now, it is that they are concerned with the effects that all this spending will have on future generations…….smile…….as I remember back to the day, future generations were not important when spending was for wars or massive satellite systems or other defensive programs.  I remember being called naive and stupid when I brought this up 20 or 30 years ago.

It is all so much horsesh!t!  These commentators are doing nothing more than justifying their existence.  These dipsticks do not want a conversation…they want an argument.  Again, so much crap in a can.

These people, and I use the term loosely, do NOT, I repeat do NOT, look at what John Q. Public wants.  John is worried about feeding his kids or their health or if they will continue to have a home….he is worried about today the next generation is just a TV show….2025 is too far away for worry and today at 0800 hrs is the most pressing of problems.

Politicians and commentators can piss and moan and sell their little books and boring interviews, but not one has a plan to solve any of the problems of today.  All they have is their egotistical rants and average person suffers and worries while the analysts listen and love the sounds of their own voices.

John Q. Public wants a liveable wage, his home,  health care, education for his children and beyond that is of NO concern.

Who’s Gonna Pay?

All the rhetoric coming out of Afghanistan ios that the US is there to help the country rebuild its army and to help keep the world safe from terrorism.

Do not know if the world will ever be safe from terrorism and on  the other thing….the army and police force……we will go broke, more so than now trying to accomplish a promise.

From an article written by Jason Ditz:

A seven-year long effort to build a functional military in Afghanistan has been an abject failure up to this point, and as the Obama Administration’s “new” plan for the nation involves massive increases in expenditures, it’s becoming increasingly clear that paying for the Afghan military is going to be a long-term responsibility of the invading forces.

“We are building an army they will never be able to afford,” as one official put it. Under the current plan, the cost will be roughly $4 billion a year. Even at that rate it’s going to take years for the US to construct anything resembling a functional military in the nation.

Right now the budget has a goal of 134,000 troops and 82,000 police by the end of 2011, though new commander Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal is planning to boost those figures even higher, putting the bottom line costs even more out of control.

But the real issue is that, even assuming the US eventually manages to create that military, the Afghan government only collects $890 million in taxes per year. With no hope that the Afghan government is ever going to be able to afford that military, it seems like it will be America’s responsibility for the foreseeable future.

OH goody…something else we taxpayers will be paying for…or should I say “bailing out”?