The Senate Armed Services Committee voted to add $25 billion to President Biden’s proposed military budget for 2022, bringing the total to a whopping $778 billion.
The additional funds will go to the Pentagon and are meant to give military services’ weapons and training programs that were not covered by Biden’s budget request. The Pentagon will receive about $740 billion of the $778 billion, and the rest will go to other departments’ military spending, such as the Energy Department’s nuclear weapons programs.
The increase was added by a Republican-led amendment to the 2022 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), but it received bipartisan support. The NDAA passed the committee in a vote of 23-3. The committee is split almost evenly, with 12 Democrats, 13 Republicans, and one Independent.
Biden’s budget request was not enough for Republican hawks who don’t think the administration is doing enough to compete with China. The NDAA is far from being finalized. The committee’s version now needs to be approved by the Senate and then negotiated with the House.
Whether or not the $778 billion NDAA ends up being the final bill, the vote from the Senate Armed Services Committee is significant. It shows a bipartisan rebuke to Biden’s proposed budget, which was already massive.
Sickening. Can’t find who voted against. But code pink did say this:
“Just the proposed $25 billion increase to the Pentagon budget alone could end homelessness in the United States, making clear that senators are more interested in increasing the profits of military contractors than meeting the needs of everyday working people,” said Carley Towne, co-director of the anti-war group CodePink.
It could go a long way to taking care of a lot of things.
Are we the Oceania to be?
“Just the proposed $25 billion increase to the Pentagon budget alone could end homelessness in the United States”
Not even close.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/homelessness-christmas-decorations_n_2276536
And?
It really doesn’t matter who makes up the claim, the claim is bullshit.
There are about half a million homeless people in the United States.
Even if merely buying homes for them would magically solve homelessness, and even if it was done with zero administrative overhead, and even if the number of homeless people didn’t effectively double as people tried to get in on the scheme, and even if the sudden market demand for half a million more homes didn’t drive prices up, $25 billion wouldn’t come close to covering it.
And nothing. You said “not even close” and I posted something that refuted what you said. I guess these claims didn’t take into account the scenarios you envision. I originally posted that code pink response to put into perspective what a waste of money the increase is and didn’t research to see how accurate it was because I thought it would make the point that the wasted $25 billion could be spent elsewhere.
Posting something that disagrees with what I said is not the same thing as posting something that refutes what I said. You posted a HuffPo piece that links to a New York Times piece in which even the numbers given don’t add up — a supposed 6% decrease in broadly defined homelessness (including people who “could become homeless” being prevented from doing so), in which an expenditure of $1.5 billion “could be credited in part.”
I agree 1000% that the wasted $25 billion could be spent “elsewhere,” and that almost any “elsewhere” would be better than where it’s being spent now. That doesn’t justify making up moonshine fairy tales about what it would accomplish if spent in a particular other way.
And I stand corrected. “Refute” was wrong.
Still haven’t found who voted against. But I know one who voted for:
https://www.stripes.com/theaters/us/2021-07-22/Senate-panel-votes-to-boost-Pentagon-budget-by-25-billion-more-than-Biden%E2%80%99s-proposal-2239160.html
“Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., welcomed the budget increase as “very positive” on a call with reporters.”
Waste of Money as Usual…!
This will of course make the USA invincible and it will no longer have to threaten, invade, sanction all its designated enemies.