Warfare, Welfare, and Wonder Woman — How
Congress Spends Your Money
Supporters of warfare, welfare, and
Wonder Woman cheered last week as Congress passed a one trillion dollar
“omnibus” appropriation bill. This legislation funds the operations of government
for the remainder of the fiscal year. Wonder Woman fans can cheer that buried
in the bill was a $10,000 grant for a theater program to explore the comic book
heroine.
That is just one of the many outrageous
projects buried in this 1,582 page bill. The legislation gives the Department
of Education more money to continue nationalizing education via “common core.”
Also, despite new evidence of Obamacare’s failure emerging on an almost daily
basis, the Omnibus bill does nothing to roll back this disastrous law.
Even though the Omnibus bill
dramatically increases government spending, it passed with the support of many
self-described “fiscal conservatives.” Those wondering why anyone who opposes
increasing spending on programs like common core and Obamacare would vote for
the bill, may find an answer in the fact that the legislation increases funding
for the “Overseas Continuing Operations” — which is the official name for the
war budget — for the first time since 2010. This $85 billion war budget
contains $6 billion earmarked for projects benefiting Boeing, Lockheed-Martin,
and other big defense contractors.
Ever since “sequestration” went into
effect at the beginning of last year, the military-industrial complex’s
congressional cheering session has complained that sequestration imposed
“draconian cuts” on the Pentagon that will “decimate” our military — even
though most of the "cuts" were actually reductions in the
"projected rate of growth." In fact, under sequestration, defense
spending was to increase by 18 percent over ten years, as opposed to growing by
20 percent without sequestration.
Many
of the defenders of increased war spending are opponents of welfare, but they
are willing to set aside their opposition to increased welfare spending in order
to increase warfare spending. They are supported in this position by the
lobbyists for the military-industrial complex and the neoconservatives, whose
continued influence on foreign policy is mystifying. After all, the neocons
were the major promoters of the disastrous military intervention in Iraq.
While
many neocons give lip service to limiting domestic spending, their main
priority remains protecting high levels of military spending to maintain an
interventionist foreign policy. The influence of the neocons provides
intellectual justification for politicians to vote for ever-larger military
budgets — and break the campaign promises to vote against increases in spending
and debt.
Fortunately,
in recent years more Americans have recognized that a constant defense of
liberty requires opposing both war and welfare. Many of these Americans,
especially the younger ones, have joined the intellectual and political
movement in favor of limiting government in all areas. This movement presents
the most serious challenge the bipartisan welfare-warfare consensus has faced
in generations. Hopefully, the influence of this movement will lead to
bipartisan deals cutting both welfare and warfare spending.
The
question facing Americans is not whether Congress will ever cut spending. The
question is will the spending be reduced in an orderly manner that avoids
inflecting massive harm on those depending on government programs, or will
spending be slashed in response to an economic crisis caused by ever-increasing
levels of deficit spending. Because politicians are followers rather than
leaders, it is ultimately up to the people what course we will take. This is
why it is vital that those of us who understand the dangerous path we are
currently on do all we can to expand the movement for liberty, peace, and
prosperity.
Permission to reprint in whole or in part is gladly
granted, provided full credit is given.
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