By the way, this is how you know Elon Musk and DOGE aren't serious actors. The Pentagon is the basically the poster child for wasteful government spending.
$865B is an obscene amount of money to throw at the war profiteers. $1.1T is unthinkable. But then again you can be sure that every member of Congress, every single one, is making bank on dividends and buybacks in war profiteer stock. And we don't even need to talk about throwing money at Elon F'king Musk. There needs to be a 50% cut in the Pentagon budget. Our national security would not be impacted in the slightest.
When Democrats are back in charge, and they will be, job one (of many jobs one) should be to nationalize SpaceX and Starlink. Take them away from Elon, who may be on the run from prosecution anyway.
The "Defense" Department camos its psycho ambitions about Offense in a name designed to rally patriotism and promote fear in friends and foes. Who does that remind you of❓Military personnel bravely serve and sacrifice for the common good, their allegience coldly betrayed by ammoral industrial avarice without ANY financial conscience or accountability. How this nation treats its Vets says it all.
On November 15, 2024, the Department of Defense released the results of its 7th annual Department-wide financial statement audit, which again resulted in a disclaimer of opinion. In other words, for the past seven years, it has been unable to fully account for how its budget was used. The 2024 budget was $824 billion dollars. If we are concerned with waste & abuse, this should have been the place to start investigating!
Somebody save us! Somebody stop them! Help! This is how I feel. An old “always-a-Marine”, now damn near helpless in the face of all this crap. I know we all have to do what we can. I’m just so tired of it all. Didn’t think I’d have to fight at this age. Dirty rotten scoundrels. Selfish, greedy, sick SOBs. But let’s charter a plane and roll out the red carpet for some white refugees from South Africa. Priorities!
We are a nation devoted to WAR and ignoring PEACE. What is wrong with us? All of the work done by elected officials since George Washington has recently been going mostly in the direction of the ability defend ourselves and to attack others. [cf. Vietnam, Iraq] How are we any "better" than Putin and Netanyahu? We have shown evidence that we are able to care about rather than to destroy humanity--funding Medical programs, Social Security programs, Climate and ecological programs to show we care about the Earth (clean air, clean water, EPA, DPA) and sometimes develop programs to clean up our waste (pollution in all areas).
Thank you for detailing how unbalanced our spending of our resources has become, and for utilizing the work of Steven Semler. WHAT CAN WE DO?
This report just makes me sick at my stomach, literally. I do not know how these charlatans took over ourwonderful country, but we need change, don't you know. The 2026 elections can't come fast enough.
More money for defense contractors & less for everyone else - & bet that money is going to make its way into Heggie & Trump’s pocketbooks AKA “gone missing”.
Not to mention massive kickbacks in the form of political contributions paid to PACs to keep key Congress people in office for all eternity. After all, they've tried desperately to be sure there's a military contractor in every state and most Congressional Districts.
The only reason I can see for this defense funding spurt is preparation for a major war. I hope I'm wrong, but the pieces are all there. Consider who is in power, and I don't mean just Trump.
While I generally agree with your slant on Trump's budget proposals, limiting the tradeoffs to defense vs the "discretionary" budget (i.e., health, education, social services, and civilian science and infrastructure is a mistake. This eliminates tax increases from the discussion. We have an urgent need to rebuild our defense capabilities -- people and infrastructure -- to face the existential threat posed by China and the less serious, but still imposing threats from Russia, North Korea, and Iran. For the past three decades, our defense focus has been developing, refining, and supporting the personnel, technology, and other assets required for current operations, mostly involved in "The War on Terrorism." There inevitably must be trade-offs between defense and civilian needs. However, we should make these trade-offs more difficult by avoiding tax increases as one way to meet our needs. The US has absorbed two rounds of ruinous tax cuts for the wealthiest among us and corporations that have enjoyed historically high profits produced by a remarkably productive US economy. It's time to stop financing our growth solely by sacrifices by the poor and middle class, and to share that burden more equally across the beneficiaries of that growth.
I suspect Trump is seeking to beef up the military because he plans to throw his weight around (pretending that the US has been cheated or offended in some way), and wants to be able to intimidate every other nation in the world. He's likely to create a military crisis leading up to the midterms in order to claim they must be cancelled (though they never have been in the past, even when we were at war). He also wants the entire military to feel as if it "owes" him something.
Meanwhile he's too blessedly stupid to realize the dangers of accepting a pseudo Air Force One "flying palace" from foreign nations who have a strong interest in keeping Trump in the line they intend for him. The risk is there's a kill switch, compromised navigational or communications systems, or explosives built in which can be used to threaten Trump midair, and the Saudis have long since made it clear that they would be perfectly happy to use such tactics.
If such a plane were to suddenly lose all communication and disappear over the ocean, who would be to blame? How could anything be proven? Trump is a sitting duck on that plane, but can't imagine that anyone else would do such things to HIM. He's precisely the kind of fool who's a very easy "mark."
This is the way it works. Democrats gut and cut defense spending and ramp up social spending. Then Republicans get into power to fix the mess and the dishonest media claims "Republicas jack up defense spending". Defense spending per GDP has trended down while non-defense spending has exploded and is responsible for our budget deficit and debt. Democrats threw $400 billion to Ukraine and thus have no legs to stand on criticizing Trump's defense budget.
By the way, this is how you know Elon Musk and DOGE aren't serious actors. The Pentagon is the basically the poster child for wasteful government spending.
$865B is an obscene amount of money to throw at the war profiteers. $1.1T is unthinkable. But then again you can be sure that every member of Congress, every single one, is making bank on dividends and buybacks in war profiteer stock. And we don't even need to talk about throwing money at Elon F'king Musk. There needs to be a 50% cut in the Pentagon budget. Our national security would not be impacted in the slightest.
How can we stop Elon Musk from winning (all) government contracts? knocking out all competition!
When Democrats are back in charge, and they will be, job one (of many jobs one) should be to nationalize SpaceX and Starlink. Take them away from Elon, who may be on the run from prosecution anyway.
The "Defense" Department camos its psycho ambitions about Offense in a name designed to rally patriotism and promote fear in friends and foes. Who does that remind you of❓Military personnel bravely serve and sacrifice for the common good, their allegience coldly betrayed by ammoral industrial avarice without ANY financial conscience or accountability. How this nation treats its Vets says it all.
On November 15, 2024, the Department of Defense released the results of its 7th annual Department-wide financial statement audit, which again resulted in a disclaimer of opinion. In other words, for the past seven years, it has been unable to fully account for how its budget was used. The 2024 budget was $824 billion dollars. If we are concerned with waste & abuse, this should have been the place to start investigating!
Somebody save us! Somebody stop them! Help! This is how I feel. An old “always-a-Marine”, now damn near helpless in the face of all this crap. I know we all have to do what we can. I’m just so tired of it all. Didn’t think I’d have to fight at this age. Dirty rotten scoundrels. Selfish, greedy, sick SOBs. But let’s charter a plane and roll out the red carpet for some white refugees from South Africa. Priorities!
We are a nation devoted to WAR and ignoring PEACE. What is wrong with us? All of the work done by elected officials since George Washington has recently been going mostly in the direction of the ability defend ourselves and to attack others. [cf. Vietnam, Iraq] How are we any "better" than Putin and Netanyahu? We have shown evidence that we are able to care about rather than to destroy humanity--funding Medical programs, Social Security programs, Climate and ecological programs to show we care about the Earth (clean air, clean water, EPA, DPA) and sometimes develop programs to clean up our waste (pollution in all areas).
Thank you for detailing how unbalanced our spending of our resources has become, and for utilizing the work of Steven Semler. WHAT CAN WE DO?
My question for them is: How about y'all stop sharing classified intel like it's a casserole recipe? Then you won't "need" extra money for defense.
Goden Dome? Just another golden shower on the American people. Why would you expect anything else?
This report just makes me sick at my stomach, literally. I do not know how these charlatans took over ourwonderful country, but we need change, don't you know. The 2026 elections can't come fast enough.
More money for defense contractors & less for everyone else - & bet that money is going to make its way into Heggie & Trump’s pocketbooks AKA “gone missing”.
Not to mention massive kickbacks in the form of political contributions paid to PACs to keep key Congress people in office for all eternity. After all, they've tried desperately to be sure there's a military contractor in every state and most Congressional Districts.
The only reason I can see for this defense funding spurt is preparation for a major war. I hope I'm wrong, but the pieces are all there. Consider who is in power, and I don't mean just Trump.
While I generally agree with your slant on Trump's budget proposals, limiting the tradeoffs to defense vs the "discretionary" budget (i.e., health, education, social services, and civilian science and infrastructure is a mistake. This eliminates tax increases from the discussion. We have an urgent need to rebuild our defense capabilities -- people and infrastructure -- to face the existential threat posed by China and the less serious, but still imposing threats from Russia, North Korea, and Iran. For the past three decades, our defense focus has been developing, refining, and supporting the personnel, technology, and other assets required for current operations, mostly involved in "The War on Terrorism." There inevitably must be trade-offs between defense and civilian needs. However, we should make these trade-offs more difficult by avoiding tax increases as one way to meet our needs. The US has absorbed two rounds of ruinous tax cuts for the wealthiest among us and corporations that have enjoyed historically high profits produced by a remarkably productive US economy. It's time to stop financing our growth solely by sacrifices by the poor and middle class, and to share that burden more equally across the beneficiaries of that growth.
Of course, it's CRIMINAL!
Of course, it's CORRUPT!
😤😤😤📢📢📢‼️😩‼️
I suspect Trump is seeking to beef up the military because he plans to throw his weight around (pretending that the US has been cheated or offended in some way), and wants to be able to intimidate every other nation in the world. He's likely to create a military crisis leading up to the midterms in order to claim they must be cancelled (though they never have been in the past, even when we were at war). He also wants the entire military to feel as if it "owes" him something.
Meanwhile he's too blessedly stupid to realize the dangers of accepting a pseudo Air Force One "flying palace" from foreign nations who have a strong interest in keeping Trump in the line they intend for him. The risk is there's a kill switch, compromised navigational or communications systems, or explosives built in which can be used to threaten Trump midair, and the Saudis have long since made it clear that they would be perfectly happy to use such tactics.
If such a plane were to suddenly lose all communication and disappear over the ocean, who would be to blame? How could anything be proven? Trump is a sitting duck on that plane, but can't imagine that anyone else would do such things to HIM. He's precisely the kind of fool who's a very easy "mark."
This is the way it works. Democrats gut and cut defense spending and ramp up social spending. Then Republicans get into power to fix the mess and the dishonest media claims "Republicas jack up defense spending". Defense spending per GDP has trended down while non-defense spending has exploded and is responsible for our budget deficit and debt. Democrats threw $400 billion to Ukraine and thus have no legs to stand on criticizing Trump's defense budget.
What me, Dictator Donnie care?? Hell no!