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.