tagged w/ defense budget
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When you look at a big number it is meaningless until it is made real. Not just in terms of lives lost or damaged (soldiers and civilians), but also to future generations in squandered finances. $1 million per day to keep a single soldier in Afghanistan? Is that necessary? Even if it is less, what is the REAL cost. Food, fuel, ammunition, medical supplies, all sent to remote locations. Infrastructure built and left behind without receiving anything in return for it.
These fake wars of Bush and his fellow RIPublicans will cost us more than just conducting them. We will be paying for them for decades after we withdraw.When you look at a big number it is meaningless until it is made real. Not just in... more
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kvb1
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added this
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8 months ago
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by Zach Carter, Media Consortium blogger
Image courtesy of Flickr user clementine gallot, via Creative Commons LicenseThe job market in its worst state since the Great Depression and is putting tremendous strain on millions of Americans. Without action from Washington, D.C., the unemployment rate will remain elevated for years to come, and almost certainly above 9 percent through the end of 2010. Public esteem for economic policymakers isn’t doing so hot either. There are several simple steps that President Barack Obama and Congress could take to create jobs, but of late, neither have shown much interest in doing so.
Jobs matter
As Tim Fernholz emphasizes for The American Prospect, one of the best opportunities to repair the job market is a piece of legislation authored by Rep. George Miller (D-CA). The bill’s strategy is straightforward: Local governments pinched by the recession can apply for federal funds to ensure that teachers, cops, and other public servants are not laid off in the name of balanced budgets. Local governments that have already let employees go could apply for funding to re-hire them.
The result would be a clear win for the economy. Miller estimates that his bill could create 750,000 jobs, while the Economic Policy Institute expects the bill could create as many as 945,000. It’s also a smart political move—Obama’s political adversaries would no doubt find some way to criticize the move (they invented death panels for health care, after all), but as Fernholz notes, voters care much more about getting back to work than they do about ideological warfare or abstract bloviations about the federal budget deficit.
The deficit vs. jobs
And the federal budget deficit is no excuse for inaction on jobs. In the middle of a recession, providing funding for jobs can ultimately be deficit-reducing. More people working means more people buying goods and services. That means higher tax receipts for the government on a variety of fronts.
The deficit only matters if it is so severe that investors are skittish about lending money to the government. We would see this nervousness in the interest rates on U.S. Treasury bonds—the rate would be very high, as investors demanded a high return for the risk they were taking on. But in fact, interest rates are very low—the interest rate on 30-year bonds is currently just over 4 percent, while it frequently eclipsed 9 percent during the presidency of George H. W. Bush.
War doesn’t improve the economy
But if lawmakers wanted to take action on the deficit, there is no reason why they should do so at the expense of jobs. Congress just approved an additional $60 billion in funding for the war in Afghanistan, while refusing to provide a $28 billion for teachers in the name of deficit reduction. Congress has officially spent $1 trillion on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, as Robert Greenwald notes for AlterNet, wars which have done little to improve either U.S. economic or foreign policy goals:
These wars aren’t making us safer. They aren’t worth the cost, and we don’t need them. What people do need are jobs and help when they don’t have enough work or any work at all. But instead of leading on the jobs issue, they’re delaying and dissembling about the cost– while spending trillions on war.
Indeed, the failure of Congress to take action on jobs before its Memorial Day recess means that over one million Americans will stop receiving unemployment benefits within a month’s time.
Tax time
As Art Levine emphasizes for Working In These Times, spending is only half of the budget equation. The other half is revenues, which means taxes. There are all kinds of ways that the government could responsibly raise taxes and use that money to create jobs. One political no-brainer would be requiring hedge fund mangers and private equity kingpins to pay taxes at the same rates as those of other billionaires.
Thanks to a George W. Bush-era tax cut, these Wall Street titans are taxed at rates as low as 15 percent, dramatically lower than the 35 percent tax rate for rich people who make their millions in the form of salary rather than interest on investments. Levine also details a host of jobs initiatives that were ultimately axed in favor of concerns about the deficit.
Tax the speculators
As Sarah Anderson notes for Yes! Magazine, taxing financial speculation itself could help give our economy a double jolt. By taxing risky Wall Street gambling, the government could bring in billions to spend on jobs. If that tax discouraged Wall Street traders from engaging in risky gambling, the lower levels of speculation would help insulate our economy from the kinds of shocks it received in the fall of 2008.
Come November, the top concern at the polling place will correspond closely to the top concerns of consumer pocketbooks. Tough economic times will mean losses for incumbents in both political parties, but the party that does the most to create jobs will do the most to curb its losses. It will also be pursuing responsible public policy, and advancing the well-being of its constituents.
This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about the economy by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Audit for a complete list of articles on economic issues, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, environment, health care and immigration issues, check out The Mulch, The Pulse and The Diaspora. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.by Zach Carter, Media Consortium blogger
Image courtesy of Flickr user clementine... more
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The House passed an appropriations bill 400-30, which took out $44 billion from the original bill including $2 billion for more F-22s. However, lots of weapons systems the military and the President never asked for are still being bought on the national credit card to buy off campaign contributors and to "create jobs" in certain Congressional districts.
$128 billion is to be spent on the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. Military personnel will only be receiving a 3.4% raise, so now a new soldier will rake in a staggering $1447 per month, or $17,364 per year. When working 16 hours a day, 7 days a week in Iraq, that comes to about $3.24 per hour after the raise. US military are exempt from US minimum wage laws.
Congress is also buying themselves 9 new F-18 Superhornets to be built in St. Louis, despite the fact that these are supposed to be phased out and replaced by F-35s. Rep. John Murtha (D-PA) is spending $369 million of your money in his district for F-22 engines. And then there's $674 million for C-17s made in Long Beach, CA that the military doesn't want. Rep. Maurice Hinchey (D-NY) is spending your money in his district for VH-71 presidential helicopters the President says are a waste of money.
Yet Congress somehow mustered the balls to stiff Obama out of the $100 million to close Guantanamo Bay's prison and move the prisoners.The House passed an appropriations bill 400-30, which took out $44 billion from the... more
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While media plays up program cuts, Obama's total defense budget surpasses Bush's by $20 billion.
US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said before presenting his FY2010 budget that the event was special due to the "scope and significance of the changes". Change was expected, given the arrival of a new administration and the fiscal pressures applied by the economic crisis, but what specifically has changed? Military analyst Miriam Pemberton tells the Real News that while some major steps have been taken to cut back expensive Cold War era weapons systems, the department's overall budget is $20 B higher than it ever was under President Bush.
Miriam Pemberton is a Research Fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies. She heads a group that produces the annual “Unified Security Budget for the United States" and she is a former Director of the National Commission for Economic Conversion and Disarmament. She is co-editor, with William Hartung, of "Lessons from Iraq: Avoiding the Next War".While media plays up program cuts, Obama's total defense budget surpasses... more
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Miriam Pemberton: US government spending $100B annually to maintain 1000 foreign military bases. Part 1
Last week President Obama unveiled his record-spending 2010 budget proposal, which included a slight increase in funding for the Pentagon when compared with George Bush's budget of 2009. Though the specific details of the budget won't be released until April, the president has promised to increase troop recruitment while cutting "cold-war" weapons programs that have yet to be identified. But as the White House undergoes a reassessment of military priorities, there is little discussion about the future of the country's vast network of foreign military bases, a network that military expert Miriam Pemberton says includes roughly 1000 bases at a cost of $100 billion per year.
Miriam Pemberton is a Research Fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies. She heads a group that produces the annual “Unified Security Budget for the United States" and she is a former Director of the National Commission for Economic Conversion and Disarmament. She is co-editor, with William Hartung, of "Lessons from Iraq: Avoiding the Next War".
See Part 2 at:
http://current.com/items/89880751/why_are_us_bases_in_korea.htm
.Miriam Pemberton: US government spending $100B annually to maintain 1000 foreign... more
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Is the US Military falling apart? The Center for Defense Information has a new book, "America's Defense Meltdown”, available as free download. It's prepared by 13 non-partisan Pentagon insiders, retired military officers and defense analysts and lays out for the new president and Congress the depth of what's wrong with our national defense and proposes solutions to these problems.Is the US Military falling apart? The Center for Defense Information has a new book,... more
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GRITtv
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added this
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3 years ago
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Sarah Palin campaigned in Erie, Pennsylvania, yesterday and blasted Democrats for allegedly wanting to cut funding from the Pentagon budget.
"We're fighting two wars, with a force strength in need of rebuilding, not in being gutted," Palin said. "And they [Democrats] think it's the perfect time to radically reduce defense spending? What are they thinking?"
Yes, what kind of monster would decide, in the midst of two wars, to cut defense spending? Why, to hear Palin tell it, you'd have to be some kind of nut to even think about reducing Pentagon funding right now.
With this in mind, it's probably an inconvenient time to point out that John McCain has promised to reduce defense spending.
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So, Sarah Palin, what are you thinking? Based on your attacks yesterday, it sounds like you may not be comfortable with McCain's plan to reduce the Pentagon's budget in the midst of two wars.Sarah Palin campaigned in Erie, Pennsylvania, yesterday and blasted Democrats for... more
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