With $600 billion in cuts to the Pentagon – including cuts to lucrative defense contracts – coming down the pike because Congress failed to come up with a deal to cut the deficit last year – Republicans are scrambling to prevent the cuts from taking effect. They're even considering something they pledged to their anti-tax overlord, multimillionaire lobbyist Grover Norquist, that they'd never do – and that's raise taxes. In the Senate – Lindsey Graham is openly talking about closing tax loopholes and increasing taxes on oil companies, to prevent defense cuts. And in the House – the Chairman of the Armed Services Committee – Representative Buck McKeon, has said he'd support tax hikes to prevent the defense cuts as well. So here's another glimpse into the morality of today's Republican Party. They're willing to raise taxes to keep the American war machine going – but not to keep tens of millions of American children out of poverty.
Leave the poverty aside...would someone please explain to me why we continue to spend more on our military than most of the rest of the world combined and we don't have a major military threat to counter?
ReplyDeleteWhy do we have 50,000 soldiers in Germany?
Why do we have thousands of folks in Japan?
Just to name two. These are left over from a war that ended 67 years ago!
Why won't we take the Joint Chiefs advice and spend more on special ops and stealth, less on conventional, and WAY less overall?
1049: Agreed
ReplyDeleteDid you know that our navy is larger than the rest of the planets navys combined?
Did you know that the US has 13 Aircraft Carriers and the rest of the planet has 9-10 combined?
We spend more on military(689$ Billion this year) than the next ~15 countries combined. The closest country to us is China with $100 Billion going towards its military complex.
We need to cut our military budget in HALF, shut down some of our bases deployed around the world, spend what military money we do have on veterans, defense on our borders, increase NASA's budget, improve our infrastructure, do something about our 30th ranked Health Care system, end the war on drugs by legalizing and taxing the sale/distribution of marijuana and most importantly fix the income inequality in this country.
But if we cut our militry budget in half who would stop all the "terrorists". Kind of really makes you think long and hard about 9/11. I know I may sound like a conspiracy theorist but our entire outlook changed on that day. You could say that all of our regular freedoms were lost with the twin towers. I for one am tired of worry when the next terrorist will strike. If it happens, then it happens. You couldn't stop Pearl Harbor, you couldn't stop 9/11, you won't be able to stop the next major atrocity because people will find a way to figure it out. It is human nature.
ReplyDeleteAgree. There are not enough jobs for these young men and women to return to though. It would be nice if they could be used to improve the infrastructure in the US.
ReplyDeleteRaising taxes does "NOT" keep tens of millions of American children out of poverty.
ReplyDeleteI'd rather be safe than sorry! My mamma used to say.
ReplyDelete