More guns, less butter
Doing federal budgets the E-Z way: increase spending on all things military, and decrease spending on everything else. Boom, job done, let’s go play golf.
President Trump will propose a federal budget that dramatically increases defense-related spending by $54 billion while cutting other federal agencies by the same amount, according to an administration official.
The proposal represents a massive increase in federal spending related to national security, while other priorities, especially foreign aid, will see significant reductions.
According to the White House, the defense budget will increase by 10 percent. But without providing any specifics, the administration said that most other discretionary spending programs will be slashed to pay for it. Officials singled out foreign aid, one of the smallest parts of the federal budget, saying it would see “large reductions” in spending.
That’s like saying you’re going to increase spending on luxury cars, and decrease spending on salt.
“We are going to do more with less and make the government lean and accountable to the people,” Trump said. “We can do so much more with the money we spend.”
Accountable? That’s got to be the biggest lie he’s told yet. He’s the least accountable president in our history. He refuses to be bound by any ethical rules whatsoever, he refuses to release his tax returns, he shuts out news organizations he dislikes, he abuses federal judges and anyone else who annoys him, he barfs out executive orders without consulting any legal experts, he shouts “Quiet, quiet, quiet” and “Sit down” at people who ask questions at his press conferences, he fires people who dispute him, he incites mobs to attack people who dispute him – he is not making the government more accountable.
It’s not coincidence, you were thinking of this, weren’t you?
http://exploringartstyles.yolasite.com/resources/Heartfield_Hurrah-2.jpg
He may be the extreme and unhinged version we’re noticing but there is nothing different from republican values that he is espousing here. He simply has the gall to do it baldly.
I don’t think reality bears any relationship to what Trump says. It’s beyond lying, where someone knows the truth and states something contrary with the hope of being believed. It’s speaking with an expectation of being believed, while having no interest in or knowledge of the truth at all. He has power; he expects people to buy what he’s selling; the reason they should is that he has power to punish disbelief and reward belief, and what actually is the case is an offensive irrelevance.
I favour a simple explanation of Donald Duck’s behaviour. It is all about snouts in the trough. Maximising defence spending puts the greatest possible number of cronies, hogs and other hangers-on around the biggest possible trough.
Primarily, the military-industrial complex has always been about military and defence industry careers: any actual defence of the country is a spin-off and by-product of it all. Like everything else associated with Trump, it is gold-plated.
AND when all else fails, they can still play the patriotism card.
I have been working for the government off and on for 35 years. During the 90s, more with less became the buzzword (so he thinks he’s cutting edge, but he’s so 1991). We continued through the 90s, into the aughts, and on into the teens doing more with less every year.
What Trump is proposing is that we do everything with nothing. Or maybe he is suggesting we don’t do anything at all, except shoot each other, of course.
Considering that the US fiscal deficit is partly financed by Chinese money, Trump’s program might just run into difficulties. Will the Chinese provide the funds for a ‘new and improved’ US war machine, when they’re the target?
One possible scenario that historian Niall Ferguson has forecast is the precipitate collapse of the US imperial system because of excessive military expenditure. Modern empires don’t decline slowly, on the Roman model, they collapse suddenly like the British Empire and the Soviet Union. The oligarchs in the Middle Kingdom must be regarding the US with a mixture of trepidation and glee, if Trump doesn’t press the button America will ruin itself.
Handy for an authoritarian state to have a powerful military and police (I understand a lot of police departments are now awash with military grade equipment) and weak social services and support networks. Just saying…
A slogan for every wall: By definition, the truth is whatever Trump says it is.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/feb/27/not-lies-donald-trump-truth-norman-vincent-peale
Rob@7
The US is unusual for a liberal democracy. American police forces are confronted with a a highly armed civilian population with access to weapons prohibited or restricted in other Western nations, and relatively low social mobility and a high degree of inequality. It’s not surprising that the cops are militarised. Americans have the police force that they deserve.
The Trump regime with probably make the situation worse, but how many people will notice?
Without tapping into SS or Medicare (or just plain old printing money) I don’t think they can increase military spending by ten percent… Everything else is just such a small fraction of the budget…
More shiny toys. Must have more shiny toys. Whatever the cost…
RJW @ 7, sure, that’s kind of a different discussion though. Under the auspices of homeland Security surplus military equipment (and then just non-surplus) was made available to police forces on the basis that in certain terrorist response situations it would be better to be able to respond with well equipped quasi-civilians than have to wait for military backup.
What seems to have happened instead is that police forces have been using what is essentially a militarised response against civilian demonstrations – including peaceful demonstration. I’m thinking particularly of Fergusson for example. I remember reading a report quoting an ex soldier, now policeman, who was watching the live telecast with horror. He said that in Iraq their rules of engagement forbid a response against anyone who was not threatening them and that they were trained NOT to point a weapon at anybody they had no intention of shooting. He though it unprofessional and unacceptable that police (some with better gear than he had in Iraq) were pointing weapons at peaceful civilians.
Even in the US I don’t think there is any call for the level of militarisation we see in police forces.
Rob,
It’s not a different discussion. A militarised response against civilian demonstrations is not a new development in the US. I’m old enough to remember TV news reports of anti-Vietnam demonstrations and during the Depression the US army attacked striking workers with lethal force. Regardless of whether or not it’s justified, increased militarisation is occurring worldwide. not just in the US. What you’re describing is a difference in technology not doctrine.
Well that wouldn’t happen to be the same hardware that Obama was going to utilise when he came to take everybody’s guns away and send all Republicans to FEMA camps, would it?
Whaddya mean, that was just the right-wing turning their dreams of an authoritarian state into their worst nightmare, namely that Obama would beat them to the punch. But it was widely reported in the honest sections of the media; Infowars, Brietbart, Fox News, et al, and it was going to happen ‘soon, any day now’ for the last eight years.
If only…
Ao! Hell yes it is of course. The road to hell is paved with good intentions. I have nothing against having a military, they’re a necessary evil. Having a militarised society is another thing altogether.
I have nothing against having a defense. What we have is an enormous offensive military, and when you have that kind of military and that kind of firepower, sooner or later you’re gonna use it, even if you are not under attack.
9/11 gave us (by us, I mean the US government, which at this current time means people who are opposed to everything I stand for) a long-lasting reason to commit our immense and inflated military anywhere and everywhere. Just shout “9/11” and “terrorism” and a lot of people shut down their thought processes and nod knowingly.
I must say, though, I never expected to see that terrible, dangerous mindset extended so far as to “last night in Sweden”, which could now be catapulted into a reason to invade a neutral country with strong unions and universal healthcare (read, communist translated into Americanese) in the interest of their protection, of course.
Reminds me of that slogan for the old TV show my mother used to watch: “Have gun, will travel”
Iknklast, indeed. When you own a hammer everything starts to look like a nail.