Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks said Friday that the Biden administration is ready to increase the president’s massive $813 billion military budget request for 2023 to keep up with inflation.
Biden’s request is more than $30 billion than what Congress authorized for 2022, representing a 4% increase. But with inflation reaching 8.5% in March, Congress wants to spend more.
Hicks said the administration is willing to work with Congress to create a budget that matches current inflation numbers. “Where inflation will be in September, let alone this time next year, we don’t know, but we want to work with Congress on the ‘23 budget to make sure we have the purchasing power for this program,” she said.
Hicks said if inflation soars higher than expected, the administration could always ask Congress for supplemental funds on top of the military budget.
Hawks in Congress are also looking to increase the budget because they feel it does not do enough to counter China, which the Pentagon’s National Defense Strategy has identified as the top “threat” facing the US military.
A group of lawmakers sent a letter to the leaders of the House Appropriations Committee calling for US Indo-Pacific Command to be given the full funds it requested after it appeared Biden’s planned budget didn’t give the command everything it wants.
Expected source for the increase. Russian treasury. Like that of Iraq, Libya, Yugoslavia.
Printing and spending lots of money, paying corporations to make weapons and using them to exert violence against others. This is the USA’s wonderful contribution to the world.
Save 10% for the big guy
Three days ago, the Federal Reserve announced another increase in interest rates and a decision to reduce its holding in Treasury securities. The Fed is doing this to slow the spike of inflation that has been hitting the US economy since before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. They’re also trying to reduce their exposure to US Treasury securities. One of the consequences of this decision will be that we’ll have to pay more interest on the Federal debt.
Biden understands that the value of the dollar is declining, and that he will need to spend more to purchase all of the weapons he wants to have available for simultaneous wars with China, Russia, and North Korea. But it is not at all clear that he understands that unbridled federal spending is the reason inflation is so severe. Indeed, he seems to think he can spend his way out of any problems with the economy.
I’m pretty sure that won’t work.
He’s already got $330B; and only lacks phoney legislation to incorporate it into War Dept. budget.
But in any event it looks like they’re willing to bet the farm on this. The perfection of NeoCon heaven being so close, the urge to get it over with is insuperable. cf. Dr Strangelove.
“Biden understands that the value of the dollar is declining..” If you mean in terms of purchasing power for households, that is not new, because it has been going on at least since the beginning of the 20th century.
Well, at least since 1913.
Hi Duane
I got my statement from my investor yesterday, and was afraid to look at it; and for good reason. My investments are modest—-I’ve never had a well-paying job—and I lost $7000 last month. Two months ago I lost $5000.
This is all I have (I’m retired and receive only SS) and a loss of $12000 is enormous for me.
My investor is very good and has steadily increased my initial investment, but it seems it’s all being wiped out now.
The feds don’t know their asses from a hole in the ground. The wealthy can certainly weather this storm but unfortunately I’m one of those who lives check to check, and I’m sure not the only one. Add in runaway inflation and we’re all screwed.
Once the dollar is no longer the reserve currency, look out.
Gypsy,
Define “lost.”
The current value of your e.g. stocks or bonds is neither a “gain” nor a “loss” UNLESS you sell/redeem them while they’re down.
I went through this with friends back during the housing crash — “I’ve LOST MONEY on my house — I paid $100k for it and now it would sell for only $90k.” Well, no, you haven’t LOST anything unless you sell it for $90k. If not, you paid $100k for a house and you still have a house.
That doesn’t mean the reductions in current sale value are good, but they’re not “lossses” yet.
Thomas, I sure don’t claim to be an expert in economics, but all I know is that that money is no longer available to me in case I need it.
If I needed, say, a new well or septic system, I’d have to take out a loan.
Numbers and I don’t get along very well. Back when I was a sign painter, I even hated painting them!
Well, that’s the thing — if you need the money NOW, you will indeed be taking a loss. And that will suck. If you’re in a position to be able to wait, there’s a possibility you’ll end up back in profit.
The stock market has historically returned an average of around 11% gain per year since 1900. But someone who bought stock in 1928 and then needed to sell it in 1930 wasn’t going to see 11% in annual gains. They were going to take a bath.
The stock market is a market of stocks-commodity stocks may do decently for the next decade. We were told Big Oil would go caput. However, when people speak of and plan for electrification-where is the electricity supposed to come from?
Thanks for your input Thomas.
The wealthy use the stock market as a hedge against inflation. Governments invest sovereign wealth funds in stocks.
If your portfolio is any good you can stake it for a loan, but the best thing to do would be to pay down any money owed on it.
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/07/13/portfolio-loans-can-be-one-way-to-make-debt-work-in-your-favor.html
NeoCon heaven, the Kriegstadt, is getting very close actualization.
Public health insurance? Too expensive.
Of course it is, anything that helps us on Main Street to expensive;-)
With a living standard 5x higher than Russia and spending less on your defense than Russia as percent of your GDP, the US isn’t the outliar. It’s Russia, they should invest in their population instead. They could start with trying to raise the life expectancy…
I assume the non military parts of the budget are getting the same consideration, right?
Ha, Ha.
“Biden’s request is more than $30 billion than what Congress authorized for 2022, representing a 4% increase.”
Plus, the $23.9 that was added by the armed services committees on top of the original $753 billion Biden requested. So, it’s really a 7.15% increase.
Nice of them to tell us there is a budget somewhere. Wouldn’t want us to think they just spend whatever the f%#k they want.
Of course, all the members of Congress, all the employees of the federal government, all the executives and all the members of the agencies are more than willing to cut their pay, reduce their incidental budgets, and just in general go without many more things in order to fund this increase in military spending, right?
Hahahahaha! Hope you enjoyed this fantasy. No, instead, they’ll just print more money, take monies out of the things that are actually beneficial spending, and perhaps vote themselves a raise for all this wonderful fiscal responsibility they’re collectively showing.
“…That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles…”
When is it going to be time?
The Ukrainian war and our direct participation in it seems to be triggering a radical re-arrangement of some state-alignments in Asia. At the core of this change are the crown-prince of Saudi Arabia and OPEC which hold the keys to providing Western Europe with oil. Salman has already stated that the full replacement of Russian oil with Saudi oil for the EU is impossible. He has signaled Saudi’s willingness to sell oil to China four yuan. His representatives are talking with representatives of Iran to normalize the relations of the two states.
If all of this persists and comes to fruition, US-Ukraine may thwart Putin but we get clobbered in much of Asia and the dollar will get hit hard.
No NATO nation is directly participating in the Ukraine war.
Intel sharing, weapons shipments, mercs, providing training, are all examples of indirect participation in war. Obviously this should be opposed – directly and honestly.
Trying to scare people into thinking we are directly at war with Russia, makes it easy to slip into the next step of real direct participation in the Ukraine war.
I’m not sure where the impetus is coming to blur popular perception of the clear and distinct lines of proxy war, but such misconception do not help the cause of peace or reduce the threat of nuclear war.
Talking up the “proxy war” angle is understandable as an excuse when the side you’d prefer to see win is getting its ass kicked.
But you’re correct about the implications.
The US and Russia have waged “proxy wars” against each other for decades. The contras in Nicaragua and the mujahideen in Afghanistan by the US against Russia, for example. And Korea and Vietnam by Russia against the US, for example.
That’s just how it is. Pretending it’s something unique or not long understood to be how things work is essentially a call for escalation.
I’m not sure who’s really getting asskicked. Russia’s definition of winning may be different from NATO’s and what you think.
Russia’s doing poorly in Ukraine – but holding ground so well internationally as to, at least in rose-coloured coke-bottle glasses terms, be ‘winning’ geo-economically and geo-politically.
NATO has not accomplished their goal of isolating Russia, crushing the Russian economy, toppling Putin and setting momentum for a restoration of Western hegemony with Russia removed from interfering if not subjugated. They have only succeeded in prolonging the Ukraine war and advancing the WEF Reset upon themselves.
The side I’d prefer win, or more accurately the preferred outcome, is the one that best secures freedom, peace and prosperity into the future. NATO engineered the conflict, but Russia is gaming it.
Neither NATO/Ukraine or Russia seem promising; they fight this war as a means to other ends than itself. At the very least this has increased the carnage upon more or less innocent Ukrainian civilians.
NATO’s intentions were always so dead wrong as to be evil. Russia may have good intentions but screwing up has resulted in bad outcomes anyway, with the potential to become far worse, even for them.
This imperial war threatens the well-being of nations far removed from Ukraine, destroying further, global supply chains including vital food supply chains.
COVID-1984 only disrupted global food delivery chains. The Ukraine war is causing and pretexting measures that destroy the capacity to produce food in the first place.
Washington is so full of hate that it wants to wage war with over half the world. How does this all end?
Probably with a mushroom cloud, friend.
President Zelensky has expressed hope that the trapped and surrounded Ukrainian fighters im Mariupol would also be allowed to leave – but this looks extremely unlikely short of surrender.
So the narrative has been twisted to the extent that combatants no longer have to surrender? The combatants in Azovstal will be arrested and sent to trial for their many many crimes against humanity.
Madness.