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      military budget

      A Lockheed Martin F-35B Lightning II joint strike fighter

      Here's an Idea for Congress: Stop Funding War and Start Funding Peace

      U.S. lawmakers must learn to say “no thanks” to more Pentagon money than requested and use those funds to help save hundreds of thousands of lives in America lost every year to domestic problems.

      Ralph Nader
      Jun 04, 2023

      The Military Budget, which devours over half of the entire federal government’s operational expenditures, has been exempted by President Joe Biden and the Congressional Republicans from any reductions in the debt limit deal just reached. Also exempted are hundreds of billions of dollars in yearly diverse corporate subsidies to big business freeloaders.

      Most of the cuts will slash the domestic programs that protect the health, safety, and economic well-being of the American people. Cuts will also be made to the starved IRS budget, further weakening its capacity to pursue super-rich tax cheats and giant corporate tax escapees. The GOP insisted on continuing its aiding and abetting of grand-scale tax evasion that fuels bigger deficits.

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      Opinion
      military-industrial complex
      Speaker McCarthy speaks to reporters.

      It’s Clear as Day the GOP Does Not Really Care About Debt or the Deficit

      Republican tax cuts for the rich have been the single largest driver of the federal deficit over the last two decades, followed by bipartisan military spending.

      Peter Certo
      May 25, 2023

      The news sure makes it sound like President Joe Biden and Republicans have been haggling over the national debt. But that’s not what’s really happening—not at all.

      Biden wants to spend more money and run up the deficit, the story goes. Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) wants to rein the Democrats’ “addiction to spending” and reduce the debt.

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      Opinion
      debt ceiling
      Five people stand in front of an F-35 aircraft.

      The Current War Machine Isn’t Your Grandparents’ Military Industrial Complex

      The MIC is consuming many more tax dollars and feeding far larger weapons producers than when President Eisenhower first raised the alarm about the “unwarranted influence” it wielded in 1961.

      Ben Freeman
      William Hartung
      May 04, 2023

      The military-industrial complex (MIC) that President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned Americans about more than 60 years ago is still alive and well. In fact, it’s consuming many more tax dollars and feeding far larger weapons producers than when Ike raised the alarm about the “unwarranted influence” it wielded in his 1961 farewell address to the nation.

      The statistics are stunning. This year’s proposed budget for the Pentagon and nuclear weapons work at the Department of Energy is $886 billion—more than twice as much, adjusted for inflation, as at the time of Eisenhower’s speech. The Pentagon now consumes more than half the federal discretionary budget, leaving priorities like public health, environmental protection, job training, and education to compete for what remains. In 2020, Lockheed Martin received $75 billion in Pentagon contracts, more than the entire budget of the State Department and the Agency for International Development combined.

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      Opinion
      military-industrial complex
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