There is always more money for defense contractors
In 2023, Republicans and Democrats are deeply divided on nearly every significant policy issue. But there is an exception to the rule. Both parties can always agree on sending more money to defense contractors.
The agreement between President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) to raise the debt limit for two years, if approved by the House and Senate, will avert a potential economic catastrophe. Biden started off demanding a "clean" debt limit increase with no extraneous provisions. McCarthy sought deep cuts in domestic discretionary spending and large increases in military spending in exchange for raising the debt limit.
The compromise, reached Sunday, includes a small decrease in domestic discretionary spending and a record $886 billion for defense, a 3.3% increase over the current year. The money allocated for the defense budget is exactly what Biden requested in the 2024 budget. Notably, about half of that money will go to defense contractors.
In 2015, the United States spent $585 billion on its military. The United States has added more than $300 billion in military spending in less than a decade. (Had military spending kept pace with inflation, military spending would still be less than $700 billion annually.) Biden has added nearly $150 billion to the military budget since 2021, the last budget approved by President Trump. The budget of the Pentagon now exceeds "the budgets for the next ten largest cabinet agencies combined." In 2020, Lockheed Martin received $75 billion in government contracts, more than 1.5 times the budget of the entire State Department.
Last year, the United States spent more on its military than the next 10 highest-spending countries combined:
https://popular.info/p/there-is-always-more-money-for-defense
underpants
(182,972 posts)TreasonousBastard
(43,049 posts)brewens
(13,640 posts)us money. It's really just looting. Commercialization rather than privatization.
In many cases the military trains these guys so they can go to work for people like Eric Prince and make the big bucks.
https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/files/cow/imce/papers/2020/Peltier%202020%20-%20Growth%20of%20Camo%20Economy%20-%20June%2030%202020%20-%20FINAL.pdf
Doc Sportello
(7,540 posts)In the long run the first will destroy a country while the second will destroy the environment. Yet few seem able to face the situations or take the necessary steps to change the trajectories.
IbogaProject
(2,849 posts)The higher profits in defence and in healthcare flow straight to the top 10% with most to the top 2%. The other political negative is defence contractors at the lower levels push each other to vote GOP. That is before the horrible death, destruction and pollution that all creates.