House Appropriations leaders are none too happy with the latest Pentagon budget request, for 2015, and the subcommittee says there is a “serious hole” in the budget’s justification.
That’s the emergency war funds provision. The Pentagon is asking for $79.4 billion as a “placeholder” amount, while refusing to offer any details of what it would be spent on, saying the situation is too fluid for that.
The emergency war funding provision is roughly identical to the 2014 amount, a perplexing fact since the Pentagon is hyping a huge drawdown that’s supposed to be finished before 2015 even begins.
$79.4 billion is more than virtually every other nation on the planet spends on its entire military, and while it’s only about 10% of the overall US request, it’s still enough money that Congress seems reticent about giving it to the military for no apparent reason.
On the bright side: of the $700 or so billions allocated to "defense" and the black 16 spy agencies, about $350B is simply siphoned off for bribes, profiteering, and various corruption. Another $100B goes to maintaining the more or less useless 700 military bases scattered across the world. $100B for salaries, VA, etc. Another $50B funding useless weapons systems like the F-35 (and it's subcontractors is ALL 50 states). Billions more for unneeded ammo and stockpiles that will NEVER be used. Untold billions for the DOE and it's nuclear fantasies. A few billion for fuel. About $50 billon for maintenance of aircraft, Navy,etc.That doesn't leave much in the way of USEFUL expenditures.
Fact is, they could DOUBLE the War Budget and still wouldn't have a prayer of defeating a real adversary that actually fight back…like Russia or China.
Pentagon budget is probably the greatest scam n the history of known civilization.
I suppose there may be some entity out there on some planet millions of light-years away that is even more corrupt…but I doubt it.
Let's see…the Congress has SO much experience lately getting anything serious through both houses so I'm betting that the warmongers will scuttle this attempt to get particulars from the Pentagon and loose the bought-and-paid-for MSM and talking -heads to decry any who object as UnAmerican and UnPatriotic and just plain old dissing the Troops…right before the mid-term elections.
Meanwhile, the Pentagon will state that any attempts to get specifics are interfering with their abilities to be prepared to respond to any threat anywhere in the world…and as everyone knows, the world is a dangerous place – especially with a fully-funded, and unconstrained American military.