$700 billion,Congress just agreed to completely out of control Pentagon spending

[Phil1111 1,149]

"Senators of both parties outdid even their House counterparts, and even the president, in their zeal to add money to the Pentagon budget. And they’ve won.

This year their budget deal will break the existing caps on military spending imposed by the 2011 Budget Control Act by a whopping $80 billion. Next year it will be $88 billion....

And the Pentagon increases don’t even count the uncapped Overseas Contingency Operations fund, which will add another $66 billion in extra military spending this year and $69 billion next year.

The grand total? $700 billion. Close to the post-World War II record....

The $125 billion in administrative waste that the Pentagon's own investigators identified and then buried...

While hiding behind expressions of devotion to “the troops,” they can now contemplate the enormous profits to be had by building, for example, yet another aircraft carrier battle group. This would be added to the 10 the U.S. already has. No other country has more than two. China has one, a secondhand one bought from Russia, with a Chinese-made model on the way.

Overall the U.S. spends four times what China is spending on its military, nine times more than Russia, and more than the next eight countries — including China and Russia — put together.
http://thehill.com/opinion/finance/373136-congress-just-agreed-to-completely-out-of-control-pentagon-spending

Pentagon buried study that found $125 billion in wasteful spending: Washington Post
"Using personnel and cost data, the report disclosed that the Pentagon was spending a quarter of its $580 billion budget on overhead and operations such as accounting, human resources, logistics and property management, the Post said.

The study found that the Pentagon had more than a million people working desk jobs in its business operations, compared with 1.3 million troops on active duty. People working the desk jobs included 298,000 uniformed personnel, 448,000 civilian defense workers and 268,000 contractors, it said. "

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-defense-waste/pentagon-buried-study-that-found-125-billion-in-wasteful-spending-washington-post-idUSKBN13V08B

Does the USA have these many enemies? Or does the subcommittee on defense appropriations need to take names and kick ass?

[gowlerk 2,192]

I would say that the "military industrial complex" is closely related to the real "deep state".

Always remember the brave children who died defending your right to bear arms. Freedom is not free.

[billvon 2,991]

Good thing we just cut tax revenues.

[gowlerk 2,192]

billvon

Good thing we just cut tax revenues.

Doesn't it just make you crazy? Politicians do this everywhere. They bribe the people using the people's own money and then borrow to cover it. It's like a freaking pyramid scheme. Bernie Madoff would blush at numbers like these.

Always remember the brave children who died defending your right to bear arms. Freedom is not free.

[billvon 2,991]

>They bribe the people using the people's own money and then borrow to cover it.
>It's like a freaking pyramid scheme.

Yep. And we are doing this at the top of the economy.

When the next bust comes we will have a massive budget, almost no tax revenue and everyone will be clamoring for stimulus to "fix" the recession. A sane approach is to increase taxes and reduce spending during good economic times, both to replenish the treasury (or more accurately pay down the debt a bit) and to put a damper on a potentially overheated economy of the sort we are seeing now. Then, during the next recession, spend that money on stimulus to reduce the depth of the recession, while cutting taxes to reduce the burden on workers who just saw pay cuts and industries hit hard by the recession.

It's insane to increase spending and cut taxes during the height of an overheated economy.

[mr2mk1g 10]

Fuck it, might as well have a parade then.

[BIGUN 1,314]

Where in the HELL do you come off applying basic economic principles to a very complex incremental budget process? You've lost your mind, Bill

You've heard me say it before...
Balanced Budget Amendment (with a war clause)
Zero-Based Budgeting

Nobody has time to listen; because they're desperately chasing the need of being heard.

[jimay 0]

billvon

When the next bust comes we will have a massive budget, almost no tax revenue and everyone will be clamoring for stimulus to "fix" the recession.

It's insane to increase spending and cut taxes during the height of an overheated economy.

Well, there are all those commercials on FOX News about buying silver to protect yourself from that - so everything will be O.K.

[headoverheels 333]

billvon

Good thing we just cut tax revenues.

That's not going to last very long, if you are not a business. Aren't there provisions to jack up the individual taxes if the deficit grows too much? I expected the tax cuts, and such provisions, were a ploy to cut Medicare/Social Security for lack of funds.

[rushmc 23]

FIfY

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

[rushmc 23]

billvon

Good thing we just cut tax revenues.

We did??

https://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/terence-p-jeffrey/feds-collect-record-taxes-first-month-under-tax-cut-run-surplus

Quote

Feds Collect Record Taxes in First Month Under Tax Cut; Run Surplus in January

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

[mrubin 0]

rushmc

***Good thing we just cut tax revenues.

We did??

https://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/terence-p-jeffrey/feds-collect-record-taxes-first-month-under-tax-cut-run-surplus

Quote

Feds Collect Record Taxes in First Month Under Tax Cut; Run Surplus in January

Is that because employers had to use the 2017 tax withholdings in January because the 2018 withholdings hadn't been released until halfway through the month? I know that my paycheck didn't change until February.

"I fly because it releases my mind from the tyranny of petty things." - Antoine de Saint-Exupery

[kallend 2,027]

rushmc

***Good thing we just cut tax revenues.

We did??

https://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/terence-p-jeffrey/feds-collect-record-taxes-first-month-under-tax-cut-run-surplus

Quote

Feds Collect Record Taxes in First Month Under Tax Cut; Run Surplus in January

Irrelevant.

All those 2017 1040ES payments come due in January. Along with a bunch of other 2017 stuff.

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[normiss 800]

Which is why a fake news site such as CNS News is the ONLY place to find the manipulated report.

[billvon 2,991]

>We did?

Yes, we did.

Thinking that one month of increased income means anything is like thinking you have plenty of money in your account because you still have checks left in your checkbook.

[tkhayes 348]

Quote

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/us-runs-january-budget-surplus-of-49-billion-treasury-says-2018-02-12

The reason was that January had one more business day than January last year. that drives it up by 5%

not from some magical policy change.

Note the last paragraph reiterating the staggering debt we will carry this year. You used to care about that....

[Phil1111 1,149]

tkhayes

Quote

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/us-runs-january-budget-surplus-of-49-billion-treasury-says-2018-02-12

The reason was that January had one more business day than January last year. that drives it up by 5%

not from some magical policy change.

Note the last paragraph reiterating the staggering debt we will carry this year. You used to care about that....

$700 this year rising to $1 trillion next year. Thats IF there is no infrastructure plan. $20.6 trillion now rising to 28 trillion by 2028 and if interest rates rise that could be 150% of GDP.

Oh well, if America's children can survive school shootings. They can pay off the debts arising from the decade of free rides that property and hedge fund managers received. All on the backs of trump voters, the poor, democrats, who had their agenda hijacked by Russia and trump.

Meanwhile President Putin will be living in quiet retirement on his French estate. Laughing, mixing vodka with French champagne and thinking about the time when he ruled Russia, America, 1/2 dozen former soviet republics and Syria.

[SkyDekker 1,465]

rushmc

***Good thing we just cut tax revenues.

We did??

https://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/terence-p-jeffrey/feds-collect-record-taxes-first-month-under-tax-cut-run-surplus

Quote

Feds Collect Record Taxes in First Month Under Tax Cut; Run Surplus in January

And once again you show that you simply do not understand the mechanics and just blindly swallow what you are fed.

[baronn 111]

Let us not forget that on Sept 10th, the day before 9/11, then SECDEF Donald Rumsfeld, told the press about the 2.3 TRILLION dollars that was missing out of the Pentagons coffers. This isn't money they Knew they spent, this was simply money that had been allocated to the Pentagon and now didn't know what happened to it. Just how much can ya spend on Hookers and Blow? It's so far outta control......