{"id":46790,"date":"2024-03-26T19:08:29","date_gmt":"2024-03-27T03:08:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/?p=46790"},"modified":"2024-03-26T19:08:29","modified_gmt":"2024-03-27T03:08:29","slug":"the-pentagon-ate-our-government","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/2024\/03\/26\/the-pentagon-ate-our-government\/","title":{"rendered":"The Pentagon Ate Our Government"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reprinted from Bracing Views<\/a> with the author\u2019s permission.<\/i><\/p>\n

Courtesy of Stephen Semler<\/a>, let\u2019s take a look at the federal budget recently signed into law by President Biden:<\/p>\n

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The biggest boost in spending from 2023 to 2024 went to the Pentagon. Of course! Even though the Pentagon has yet to pass an audit. Throw money at it as a reward!<\/p>\n

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Let\u2019s do some basic math. Add the Pentagon budget, Homeland Security, Military Construction and the VA, and State\/Foreign Ops and you get $1.118 trillion. (Basically, the State Department is a tiny branch of the Pentagon.) But even that figure is low, since some Energy spending goes to nuclear weapons, and I can\u2019t imagine that spending on science doesn\u2019t have military applications.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s go with the $1.118 trillion figure as a rough estimate of military spending. Adding up all the numbers of money spent produces a total of $1.627 trillion. That means the percentage of money spent on the Pentagon and related military matters amounts to 68.7% of federal discretionary spending.<\/p>\n

Yes, the Pentagon ate our government.<\/p>\n

Of course, not included in the figures above is mandatory federal spending on the rapidly escalating national debt, Medicare and Medicaid, and Social Security. Nevertheless, the rough figures here are a telling indicator of the dominance of militarism and military spending in our lives. When nearly seventy cents on the dollar goes to empire, internal security, wars, foreign military sales, and the like, there\u2019s little money left for other concerns like better education and transportation or safer water and a cleaner environment.<\/p>\n

Well, America gets what it pays for. More military bases, more wars, more weapons, and more bloodshed globally. Add in some apocalyptic nuclear weapons and now I\u2019m really having a bad Monday.<\/p>\n

Update (1910 EST)<\/strong>: Courtesy of Stephen Semler once again<\/a>, my guesstimates above were close to being spot on, as shown in his new post, which I\u2019ll attach here:<\/p>\n

Sixty-eight percent of the FY2024 discretionary budget<\/a> is for military and law enforcement-related programs.<\/em><\/p>\n

This $1.1 trillion total includes the Pentagon and Military Construction\/VA spending bills<\/a> and parts of four others:<\/em><\/p>\n