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Biden Expands Trump's Bloated Military Budget

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Biden Expands Trump's Bloated Military Budget

There are many good reasons to condemn both ruling parties. Militarism is one of them.

Peter Daou
Feb 17, 2022
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Biden Expands Trump's Bloated Military Budget

www.directleft.com
Photo by Chris Hondros/Getty Images

NOTE: I grew up in Beirut during the Lebanese Civil War and I’ve witnessed the devastation and carnage of military conflict. I selected the image above to illustrate what war actually looks like. It is a photo of an Iraqi girl in agony after her parents were killed by U.S. Soldiers in Tal Afar, Iraq in 2005.


Against the backdrop of the drumbeat of war in Ukraine, Reuters reports:

President Joe Biden is expected to ask Congress for a U.S. defense budget exceeding $770 billion for the next fiscal year as the Pentagon seeks to modernize the military, according to three sources familiar with the negotiations, eclipsing the record budget requests by former President Donald Trump. The budget would benefit the biggest U.S. defense contractors including Lockheed, Northrop Grumman Corp and General Dynamics Corp.

Twitter avatar for @JordanUhl
jordan @JordanUhl
This is a $17,000,000,000 increase from Biden's request last year ($753,000,000,000), which was already a $12,000,000,000 increase on Trump's highest military budget. https://t.co/dUcFPA9ZO9
Twitter avatar for @Reuters
Reuters @Reuters
EXCLUSIVE Biden to seek more than $770 billion in 2023 defense budget, sources say https://t.co/OlGwyb18P0 https://t.co/eRRArrH48o
6:41 PM ∙ Feb 16, 2022
9,084Likes2,037Retweets

To put this budget in context, Biden’s infrastructure bill and Build Back Better Act amount to less than a third the military spending he’s requesting. And of course, Republicans will welcome it, and ask for more. If anything is ‘bipartisan’ in Washington, it’s war.

A common (and worthwhile) exercise among establishment critics is to list the things that the U.S. government won’t provide to its citizens while having seemingly unlimited money for the military:

Twitter avatar for @DRJEnglish21
🌻De'Narde English🌹 @DRJEnglish21
Our govt spent $770 billion on obsolete stuff like the overly bloated military budget, and @POTUS wants more. But God forbid we get student debt relief, paid family leave, dental and vision for medicare, UBI, GND or lower prescription drug prices! I'm so SICK OF THIS SH*T!
Twitter avatar for @Reuters
Reuters @Reuters
EXCLUSIVE Biden to seek more than $770 billion in 2023 defense budget, sources say https://t.co/OlGwyb18P0 https://t.co/eRRArrH48o
4:52 AM ∙ Feb 17, 2022
Twitter avatar for @MuseKat
Nashoba 🔜 TFF @MuseKat
What this country can "afford" ❌ Healthcare ❌ Canceling student debt ❌ Free education ❌ Public transportation ❌ Voting rights ❌ LGBTQ Rights ❌ Housing the homeless ❌ Parental leave ✅ $770,000,000,000 for Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and L3.
Twitter avatar for @Reuters
Reuters @Reuters
EXCLUSIVE Biden to seek more than $770 billion in 2023 defense budget, sources say https://t.co/OlGwyb18P0 https://t.co/eRRArrH48o
1:11 AM ∙ Feb 17, 2022
151Likes70Retweets
Twitter avatar for @DsaOshkosh
DSA Oshkosh🌹🎣🧀 @DsaOshkosh
No student debt relief, no minimum wage increase, no meaningful climate action, no monthly stimulus checks throughout COVID. But Biden is making sure to dump far more money into the military than Trump ever did.
Twitter avatar for @Reuters
Reuters @Reuters
EXCLUSIVE Biden to seek more than $770 billion in 2023 defense budget, sources say https://t.co/OlGwyb18P0 https://t.co/eRRArrH48o
6:59 PM ∙ Feb 16, 2022

The list of policies where Biden has out-Trumped Donald Trump grows by the day. It includes border abuses, oil drilling, coronavirus deaths, and military spending. Chris Hedges writes:

When all else fails, when you are clueless about how to halt a 7.5% inflation rate, when your Build Back Better bill is gutted, when you renege on your promise to raise the minimum wage or forgive student debt, when you can’t halt the Republican suppression of voting rights, when you have no idea how to handle the pandemic which has claimed 900,000 lives – 16% of the world’s total deaths although we are less than 5% of the world’s population … when you watch passively as the ecocide gathers momentum, then you must make the public afraid of enemies, foreign and domestic. You must manufacture an existential threat.

Democrats and liberals will assail leftists as “fascist enablers” for speaking the truth. And they will go back to voting harder for the ‘blue team,’ as though that changes anything.

Twitter avatar for @Obukowsky1
Obukowsky @Obukowsky1
Image
Twitter avatar for @Reuters
Reuters @Reuters
EXCLUSIVE Biden to seek more than $770 billion in 2023 defense budget, sources say https://t.co/OlGwyb18P0 https://t.co/eRRArrH48o
12:47 PM ∙ Feb 17, 2022
14Likes2Retweets

As I noted recently, large majorities of Americans favor ending the two-party monopoly:

Sixty-two percent of U.S. adults say the "parties do such a poor job representing the American people that a third party is needed," an increase from 57% in September. Meanwhile, 33% of Americans believe the two major political parties are doing an adequate job representing the public, the smallest percentage expressing this view apart from the 26% reading in October 2013.

Considering that political leaders of both ruling parties think making war is more important than ending poverty, hunger, and homelessness, is it any wonder people want a change?

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Biden Expands Trump's Bloated Military Budget

www.directleft.com
1 Comment
Walter Hackett
Writes Big Dub’s Newsletter
Feb 17, 2022

It is unquestionably true, even if discomforting, that meaningful change benefitting the average American is less and less likely going to happen at the ballot box.

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