Will a Trillion Dollars Per Year Buy America a Better Defense?
01/14/2023
By James Durso
The Pentagon had a very merry Christmas but all the American taxpayers got was a lump of coal.
The U.S. Congress passed an omnibus spending bill that awarded the Pentagon $45 billion more than originally requested – a record $816.7 billion dollars – out of $858 billion for the national defense establishment. The Veteran’s Administration, which is really just deferred defense spending, requested $301.4 billion, and the Intelligence Community budget request includes $26.6 billion for the Military Intelligence Program. There’s also probably something squirreled away at the Department of Homeland Security, but you get the picture.
And don’t forget the interest on the money the U.S. borrows, much of it from foreigners, to pay for national defense.
And that’s not enough for some.
H.R. McMaster, the former White House national security adviser, and other defense hawks, advocate the defense budget be increased to 4.5% of GDP or $1.2 trillion. McMaster justifies the budget increase because American “restraint” is to blame for aggressive moves by Russia and China, which will be news to citizens of the Middle East and Afghanistan who were on the sharp end of U.S. restraint.
https://defense.info/featured-story/2023/01/will-a-trillion-dollars-per-year-buy-america-a-better-defense/
