Tuesday, February 07, 2006

Defense Spending to Bring Nation to Ruin

The administration will apparently not be satisfied until the rampant spending on "defense" brings this country to complete ruin. With the record budget deficits, we passed bankruptcy long ago.

Lining the pockets of the well-connected government contractors has been the major military priority of our elected politicians since World War II ended. In recent years the budget train has completely jumped the tracks. The increases demanded by the Bush administration have given a sinister new definition to the term "shameless greed-intoxicated rapacious morally-deviant ethically-depraved psychopathic power-hungry abusers of authority."

The Pentagon yesterday announced a $439.3 billion budget request that adds billions for new initiatives to fight terrorism and other "irregular" conflicts without cutting major conventional weapons systems -- effectively postponing what defense budget analysts predict will be tough decisions down the road.

The defense budget includes $5.1 billion to increase Special Operations Forces by 4,000 in 2007, with plans to add a total of 14,000 troops at a cost of nearly $28 billion through 2011. The elite troops -- now numbering about 52,000 -- are skilled in combating terrorism and insurgents, and in working with foreign militaries, but they have been stretched thin by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Now we get to the really egregious parts:

Much bigger sums go toward continuing conventional weapons systems, with $15 billion for new helicopters and fighter jets such as the Joint Strike Fighter and Air Force F-22, and $11.2 billion for two new Navy DD(X) destroyers, one Virginia-class submarine and two Littoral Combat Ships aimed at expanding the Navy's ability to operate in coastal areas.

The Army, the branch that won the biggest increase, is allocated $6.6 billion to expand and modernize its brigades to deploy more rapidly, and $3.7 billion for research on the Future Combat System, a network of lighter ground vehicles, aerial drones and sensors.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said the Pentagon's budget increase -- 6.9 percent more than Congress enacted for 2006, and 4.8 percent more than requested for 2006 -- is needed because as the military counters new threats, it cannot afford to lose superiority over other military powers.

What he means is that our military contractors must receive entitlements to keep them afloat while poor American citizens are left to flounder without a lifeboat.

As budget pressures mount, defense analysts see a growing problem with the Pentagon's reluctance to cut more traditional weapons systems. They say this could eventually crowd out initiatives to transform the military to meet future threats. "Not only did they not address the funding mismatch, but their plan calls into question whether these [new initiatives] will be doable in coming years," said Steven M. Kosiak, a defense budget expert at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, a think tank.

The defense buildup has seen Pentagon spending on weapons procurement double in current dollars from $42 billion in 1996 to $84 billion in 2007, and that is unlikely to last, analysts say. The cost of research and development has also grown, reaching $73.2 billion in the 2007 budget.

Not enough largesse for the big boys? Apparently not. The new budget steals from the (albeit misguided) members of the all-volunteer military:

Exacerbating the cost crunch are expanding personnel expenditures such as pay, health benefits and recruiting costs. "People costs for the U.S. military have grown tremendously," up 35 percent in real terms since 1999, Kosiak said.

The 2007 budget reflects some efforts to rein in personnel costs. For example, the military pay raise is only 2.2 percent, and the budget includes a plan to increase the cost sharing for health benefits paid by military retirees younger than 65 from 12 percent to as much as 26 percent, Pentagon comptroller Jonas said. Otherwise, she said, health care benefits would rise from the 2007 budgeted amount of $39 billion to more than $50 billion in 2011.

The assholes in power in the United States claim to "support the troops". Nearly every vehicle except the most swanky in Washington is adorned with magnetic stickers that make that spurious claim.

Like the lapel-pin flags on their suits, it is all for show. These people care nothing for the Americans who are being sent in great danger to kill and be killed in their name.

They care even less for the people who call bullshit on their theft of this country.

11 Comments:

Blogger M1 said...

Once the War Dept - then the Defence Dept. We always need defence - even when there's no war, right? Slick move...and we can never have enuff defence.

As Robert Reich once outlined, same nation but different boats.

Or different nations in the same country. Whatever...the nationstate as an expression of common fortunes and shared destinies is dead but in myth.

The Nation's remaining purpose seems to be as a vehicle for the haves to tax the remaining shit out of the geographically proximal have-nots. And that tax revenue is unabashedly used to exclusively finance institutions that aid and abet in the furtherance of their wealth and leverage in the global arena.

(It's always been that way to some extent but at least the trickle-down kept the Eaters reasonably afloat.

Now the tax-paying Eaters are to be shock&awe-severed from any semblance of getting a sliver of the national wealth on their plates solely on the basis of U.S. citizenship.

Eaters are now to be monitored for the day they run out of milk and try to do something about it. Till then they can pay taxes and patriotically get nuthin' back but the lofty right to serve in the military.)

We're already a giant stride into a world where if you ain't seriously tapped into corporate equity positions to pay your bills then you're ripe to be fucked and your kids will have to volunteer to live in the command state economy of the military to have their precious teeth fixed.

Wages ain't gonna buy shit diddly in a decade's time - that is if you're lucky to have a perfect enough smile to even land a wage paying job at the local Holiday Inn reception.

2/07/2006 1:26 PM  
Blogger Effwit said...

Meatball One:

As usual, you accurately articulate the truth of the matter with more descriptive language per paragraph than I can come up with in a rare fully lucid week.

I can only boil it down to this:

The thieves need weapons to protect their booty.

No other considerations (such as the useless eaters) play any role whatsoever.

2/07/2006 2:15 PM  
Blogger M1 said...

God, I wish I could have said that! Teach me some of that potent brevity!

Still learning to be lazy, M1

2/07/2006 2:19 PM  
Blogger M1 said...

Now you're talking like you wanna knock me up for 10 bucks till next payday.

Laziness is a next door neighbour to Godliness. Don't go changin'

2/07/2006 5:10 PM  
Blogger Effwit said...

Can I borrow the car tonight?

2/07/2006 5:44 PM  
Blogger M1 said...

No, but my foster Mom is home alone and bored

(this reply may be understandably deleted)

2/07/2006 6:49 PM  
Blogger Effwit said...

ROFL

2/07/2006 7:43 PM  
Blogger DrewL said...

Won't be long before the poor have no other choice but to join the military.

"You want three meals a day, a roof over your head and clothes to wear? And you don't even need an education. Have we got a deal for you!"

It may not be a real draft, but it will become a de facto draft.

"Bring us your tired, your poor, your hungry. We don't ask for experience, we give it. You won't read it in a book, you'll live it!"

Kind of catchy, don't you think?!

2/07/2006 10:58 PM  
Blogger Effwit said...

Drew L:

I fear we are already to the point at which most enlistees do so out of strictly economic motivations.

Why else would anyone do it?

Their recruiting propaganda is slick, but not good enough to make that many people act directly against their real Darwinian interest of preserving life and limb.

Nice ad slogan you came up with. Containing a historical subconscious trigger, too. You may want to pitch it to the Pentagon.

I hear that they pay pretty well.

2/08/2006 9:52 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

-- Yes that is a very nice slogan...

What I'm thinking, though, is that the "poor" actually have more power, much more power than they think... If only they realized it... It's only when we can see the crazyness of killing someone else so that we can survive -- will those rich, powerful eaters have no power over us. There has to be a War on War... we all collectively have to be willing to let our teeth rot before we'll do the unholy bidding of those in power ...

But anyway, spending more to turn Fortress America into a stronger Fortress is so misguided it takes my breath away... The good news is, it is so misguided that it carries within it the seed of destruction as well...

Dena

2/10/2006 10:15 AM  
Blogger Effwit said...

Dena:

A general strike by the poor would definitely get the attention of the malefactors. Money is the only important thing to them. Anything that threatens profits will concern the rulers of the U.S.

The war-mongers lack the basic human instinct not to push things (especially destructive things) to their extremes.

The karmic wheel is a foreign (i.e. bad) notion to these monsters. The karma accruing as a result of their actions is so negative that they can only ignore it. If they believe that there will be any payback for their crimes, they aren't showing it.

Thus sowing the seeds of their destruction.

That will make their comeuppance so much more surprising to them.

2/10/2006 12:12 PM  

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