Under the new budget deal, military spending will be higher than it was when we were fighting 2 wars

[Triana]

Until Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) and Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) rode to the rescue this week, Pentagon brass and their allies had been issuing dire warnings about the nation's military readiness: The armed services were being decimated, they said, by sequestration—the automatic budget cuts that were set to trim $1 trillion from the Pentagon budget over the next decade. "It's one thing for the Pentagon to go on a diet. It's another for the Pentagon to wear a straitjacket while dieting," grumbled Rep. Jim Cooper (D-Tenn.). The message got through: The House overwhelmingly approved the Ryan-Murray plan just two days after it was introduced.

But now, the Pentagon has once more gotten a reprieve from the budget ax: Under Murray and Ryan's congressional budget deal, the Pentagon will get an additional $32 billion, or 4.4 percent, in 2014, leaving its base budget at a higher level than in 2005 and 2006. (The Department of Defense expects its total 2014 budget, including supplemental war funding, to be more than $600 billion.)

Before the budget deal, some critics of defense spending had been ready to accept sequestration as the blunt, imperfect tool that might force the military to shed some of the bulk it acquired while fighting two of the longest and most expensive wars in our history. Even with the sequester in place, the Pentagon's base budget was set to remain well above pre-9/11 levels for the next decade, and the military would have taken a far smaller haircut than it did after Vietnam and the Cold War wound down.



The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan cost $1.5 trillion, about twice the cost of the Vietnam War when adjusted for inflation. Those funds came entirely from borrowing, contributing nearly 20 percent to the national debt accrued between 2001 and 2012. And that's just the "supplemental" military spending passed by Congress for the wars—the regular Pentagon budget also grew nearly 45 percent between 2001 and 2010.

THE REST:

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/12/pentagon-budget-deal-charts-cuts

[warrant46]

1. Disgusting !!

The US cannot adequately feed all its citizens, nor educate them, nor provide them with health care, nor repair its failing infrastructure, has done nothing to address climate change, yet can afford to squander billions creating "social profiles" of all its citizens, and profiling people all over the world .. not to mention the trillions spent bombing and occupying other nations and trillions given away to banksters.

[Triana]

3. That about sums it up.

[Brigid]

2. Somebody wanna explain to me why???

[Orsino]

9. When you allow money to vote, it unfailingly votes for itself. n/t

[mother earth]

4. Bush/Cheney only started this shit sandwich, they want to finish it off with austerity.

Never have the wealthy elite done so well to enrich themselves further & never have the corporations
& MIC enjoyed such enablement and empowerment.

I thought we won these last two elections?

[liberal_at_heart]

5. This is what is wrong with this current crop of democrats. They don't start it. They just

go along with it. They don't have the guts to stand up and fight against it.

[LionsTigersRedWings]

6. How the hell is this possible????

There is no reason for this!! Completely ridiculous

[woo me with science]

7. The outcome was never in doubt.

The system and our current corporate politicians in both parties are thoroughly corrupted, and this outcome was never in doubt for a moment.

Negotiations are always Kabuki. The MIC always wins.

[City Lights]

8. Fucked up priorities.

[ProSense]

10. This chart shows current levels

including war spending, from the link:

[solarhydrocan]

11. It costs big bucks to rule the world

http://empire.is



After the Berlin Wall fell our "leaders" decided to go for it. It's a New American Century.

[rhett o rick]

12. This will continue until the American people finally wake up. nm