Just days after the House Armed Services Committee unveiled its $696.5 billion military spending bill, their Senate counterpart, led by Sen. John McCain (R – AZ) offered an alternate version that would exceed even that, topping out at around $700 billion.
Both of these versions far surpass the $603 billion proposal of President Trump, which was itself a substantial increase. The House version has a larger amount of money in the Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) budget than the alternatives, but the Senate version is larger overall.
The Senate version is said to add 6,000 more Army soldiers and 1,000 Marines than the Pentagon wants,as well as 24 more of the troubled F-35 warplanes than have been requested. Sen. Jack Reed (D – RI), ranking Democrat on the committee, endorsed the idea, but wanted the Budget Control Act repealed to allow such a massive increase without any legal obstacle.
Sequestration capped the increase rate of military spending in theory, but in practice the OCO budget has been used to circumvent that, as there was no limit on this, and laws enabled the money put into that budget to be shifted by the Pentagon wherever they want. Ironically, while no one takes sequestration seriously, the OCO slush fund seems to be continuing apace anyhow.
How lucky that the USA has no debts, all its people have nutritious natural food, plus decent housing, free health care, good public education(where they learn about global warming, evolution, peace and brotherly love). Spending money on “defense” helps the economy grow for everyone. LOL
I do not know how much if any President Trump is worried about “Russiagate”. However as a businessman he knows what the baseline is. How often will he have to ask Congress for a raise in the debt ceiling thereby antagonizing some of his supporters? What if the deficits of his administration are larger than those of President Obama? Supporters will not be pleased. Even small wars are expensive and the 700 billion do not even come close to the total expenses of all war-related agencies. Will he veto a much larger defense budget than his original proposal?
He must therefore bring the ISIL wars to a close soon for which he needs the cooperation of Assad, Russia, and Iran. Good luck!
Now finally the republicans could achieve a balanced budget . The recession is over the economy is good . Trump said we were close to a debt level impossible to pay . So now lets cut our debt . But I some how don’t think that’s the plan . I think he wants to spend a lot more money and grow our economy and grow our way out of the debts .Trump is turning out just like Obama who was just like Bush who was just like Clinton . You can’t put much faith in anything any of them say .
It looks like Syria might be a lot better off defeating ISIS without the United States shooting down their planes . I think ISIS would be defeated faster if we came home .
Maybe it’s for the best, that Rome is hastening its economic collapse.
Meanwhile, 22 million people will be uninsured by 2026.
United States spends over 600 billion on defense and Russia spends about 56 billion . Yet if you have to bet on who leaves Syria defeated don’t bet on te one that wastes the most money . Russia planes can keep up with our best planes and turn even faster . Putin knows what we can do but I don’t think Trump knows what Russia can do . Our intelligence agencies has been concentrating on proving Trump works for Russia . rather than what kind of power Russia is likely to respond with if Trump should shoot down Russian planes in Syria ..
This is a disgrace. ‘mericer and its two bit tin horn politicians have no moral compass. Tax dollars should be spent to better lives not on feeding the military or its tributary industrialists, not on wars of global capitalist expansion, not on wars of ethnic cleansing, and not on the horrors they bring to the world. Those who voted for this are war criminals. The alleged national security scam needs to be exposed for the lie that it is and for its false justification for the racket that is really a form of an industrial/ financial murder incorporated gang that is being used to expand the corporate/ financial state around the globe.