How broke does the U.S. have to be to cut military spending?

http://www.opednews.com/articles/How-broke-does-the-U-S-ha-by-Lisa-Savage-130613-152.html

How broke does the U.S. have to be to cut military spending?
OpEdNews Op Eds 6/13/2013 at 08:20:24
By Lisa Savage

The omnibus military spending bill known as the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) rolled out of the House Armed Services Committee pulling a trailer load of amendments and barreling down an increasingly potholed road. In the same week as news broke of massive school closings in Chicago and Philadelphia for lack of funding, only two members of the committee, California representatives Jackie Speier and John Garamendi, had the presence of mind to vote "no" on $637.5 billion more for drones, nukes, and missile "defense" in FY2014.

The NDAA will now make its way through a House of Representatives packed with liberals and conservatives who take massive campaign contributions from military contracting firms. Democrats will take their lead from President Obama, who proposed the $1.15 trillion annual budget that includes a whopping 56.5% military share of the discretionary spending pie.



Despite the crisis of sequestration and claims that the U.S. is too broke to adequately fund food stamps, Head Start, or "Meals-on-wheels" for the elderly, the NDAA contains $85.8 billion for the war in Afghanistan plus another $7.7 billion for the Afghan Security Forces. These funding levels are $52.2 billion over what sequestration would supposedly require -- an additional $1 billion a week.

The House Armed Services Committee also passed a "Sense of Congress" endorsement of a continued U.S. military presence in Afghanistan after 2014 as well as ongoing funding for the Afghan Security forces. Thus the U.S. "withdraws" from Afghanistan.



unhappycamper comment: Keep in mind all we are talking about is a lousy five percent budget cut.