Why is the Defense budget growing?
The House should negotiate by passing bills. Start with a clean, permanent repeal of the debt ceiling, now. Treasury should just be required to borrow whatever deficit is required to pay all lawful appropriations. Follow up with a clean, automatic, permanent continuing resolution for Justice, Treasury, Commerce, Labor, Education, Interior, Energy, Homeland Security, who did I forget? Everyone but Defense because of the Constitutional 2-year limit on the Army.
Call it the No Obligations of Government Abandoned Maliciously Ever (NOGAME) Act.
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And gee, what a surprise to see those white, young, hairy legs with flip-flopped feet holding the leash. A young supremicist in the making?
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Why is the Defense budget growing?
Because we’re in the weapons business,. Demand is high around the world.
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The McConnell bipartisan compromise: The GOP will forgo the proposed increase in military spending in exchange for the Democrats accepting matching dollar-for-dollar cuts to the current spending on SS, Medicare and other domestic programs.
@paulw Mea culpa. I was wearing my rose colored glasses. 
Way too liberal. The GOP will forgo half the proposed increase as long as the entire sequester amount is made up by social-service and regulatory cuts.
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Any cuts to DOD will not do a damn thing to the high dollar usually unnecessary/unwanted MIC programs. You can place bets that any cuts will occur with pay/retirement, training, ammunition and other supplies. That has been the SOP for years and is not about to change. Disagree, look at where the billions tRUmp gathered for the nonsense wall, schools, housing, infrastructure not a single MIC program was even cut back by .0000000000001%.
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War’s good business
Tomahawks 125k a pop. Good for taking out 5k pickup trucks
Tey have a vested interest in war
They discovered during WW2 that it was a quick easy way to profit. That’s when it started
Patriotism is good for the bottom line
LOL, but I can’t deny or disagree with what you say. Was recently watching Hurt Locker (didn’t see it when it came out). And my first thought , as I watched the soldiers put on their special gear, was what the hell did that cost us. And you know there were no budget constraints as it saved soldiers’ lives, etc. Not that I count dollars but in my 2 years in the Army I saw so much waste and theft that I laughed with every scam.
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A lot of that stuff ends up as surplus, sold or given to local police departments, so they can be sure black people signal lane changes and don’t have burned out taillights.
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McConnell may be more eager for a deal than Pelosi. Senate… traditions mandate that the process in that chamber be bipartisan if it is to succeed
HA HA HA HA HA
Stupid AP.
The Dems “hole card” is entitlement spending. While the filibuster still exists in the Senate and the Dems hold the House, ANY cuts in entitlement spending should be off the table. My guess is the default position will be the Budget Control Act limits will go into effect, and we will have CR’s until the end of this Congress and this administration.
WRT the Debt Ceiling, Pelosi should start with a demand that Trump, Mnuchin and Barr comply with the oversight subpeona’s or no vote on any debt ceiling legislation. Let them take it out of hide by selling Mar-a-lago, (since is the Southern WH), to pay the bills.
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It was crazy after 9/11 when local police departments were ‘manning up’ with all kinds of military surplus, weapons, riot gear, tanks, crowd control vehicles, etc. I miss the good old days with cops and shotguns mounted on the dashboard. I think the Simpsons even did a Chief Wiggum episode on it.
And those ‘blacks’ with their busted taillights. Still a big problem. Police policy, lock-n-Load!
It’s a nice fantasy, but the Republicans have weaponized (in legislative terms) the fact that they don’t give a hoot about government functioning except as a source of corporate rents, whereas Democrats continue to believe in government actually having policies to support the general welfare (cf. US Constitution), and in paying for them. This creates a rhetorical asymmetry in that Republicans can always threaten “our way or nothing” with some credibility (since they know their low-information voters don’t get that it’s they who will suffer), whereas Democrats’ rhetoric obliges them to look ‘responsible’. I’m not sure how we ever get out of this loop (now being exploited by populist rightists everywhere), although the late 19th-century to 1932 seems the best past trajectory… but I fear the suffering and deaths involved if we have to massively re-educate democratic publics by war and financial crisis.
McConnell: Senate rules, traditions? What are these things of which you speak?
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After the last shutdown, all federal employees should be building an emergency fund. I sure as shit am, and I was okay through most of the last one (was sweating having to make that 2nd mortgage payment without dipping into long term savings).
WHERE in hell is the outrage from the democrats regarding a 750 billion!!!..dollar war budget?
the real war budget is over a TRILLION dollars when you figure out all the items in the budget anyway…but in reality this country should not be spending any where near that amount since 200 billion a year is more than enough to keep the military funded.
it has been send before but the USA spends more on its war budget then…China,Saudi Arabia,Russia,India,U.K ,France,Japan,South Korea,Brazil,Australia,Italy,Israel…and Iraq…COMBINED!
wasting all this money is the real reason we have homeless,and an un-educated population…falling down bridges…etc…etc…
and since both parties are corrupted and work against the interests of the people…this spending which is not sustainable…will continue right up to the day…the dollar is no longer the worlds reserve currency and the USA suffers an economic meltdown…which ironically is being speed up thanks to tRumps foreign policy of belligerence.
once other countries no longer accept the dollar…the crash will be swift and the game over.
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Precisely. Came here to the threads to laugh uproariously at
McConnell may be more eager for a deal than Pelosi. Senate rules and traditions mandate
GMAFB, AP.
Scary brown people. Speak furrin languages, have funny religions, wear funny clothes. Also many Moozlims and Zoro-whatevers. Bow down to the Fake Allah-god, who likes to kill Christian babies. (Saudi Arabians exempted, they are “good Moozlims.”) Very good for business, if you’re a contractor.