DISARMAMENT & SECURITY .

An article by David Swanson

An important job of any U.S. president is to propose an annual budget to Congress. Shouldn’t it be a basic job of every presidential candidate to propose one to the public? Isn’t a budget a critical moral and political document outlining what chunk of our public treasury should go to education or environmental protection or war?

The basic outline of such a budget could consist of a list or a pie chart communicating — in dollar amounts and/or percentages — how much government spending ought to go where. It’s shocking to me that presidential candidates do not produce these.

As far as I have been able to determine, though it’s so absurd as to seem improbable, no non-incumbent candidate for U.S. president has ever produced even the roughest outline of a proposed budget, and no debate moderator or major media outlet has ever publicly asked for one.

There are candidates right now who propose major changes to education, healthcare, environmental, and military spending. The numbers, however, remain vague and disconnected. How much, or what percentage, do they want to spend where?

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Does military spending lead to economic decline and collapse?

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Some candidates might like to produce a revenue / taxation plan as well. “Where will you raise money?” is as important a question as “Where will you spend money?” But “Where will you spend money?” seems like a basic question that any candidate should be asked.

The U.S. Treasury distinguishes three types of U.S. government spending. The largest is mandatory spending. This is made up largely of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, but also Veterans’ care and other items. The smallest of the three types is interest on debt. In between is the category called discretionary spending. This is the spending that the Congress decides how to spend each year.

What every presidential candidate ought to produce, at a minimum, is a basic outline of a federal discretionary budget. This would serve as a preview of what each candidate would ask the Congress for as president. If candidates feel they need to produce larger budgets outlining changes to mandatory spending as well, so much the better.

President Trump is the one candidate for president in 2020 who has produced a budget proposal (one for each year he’s been in office). As analyzed by the National Priorities Project, Trump’s latest budget proposal devoted 57% of discretionary spending to militarism (wars and war preparations). This is despite the fact that this analysis treated Homeland Security, Energy (the Energy Department is largely nuclear weapons), and Veterans Affairs each as separate categories not included under the category of militarism.

The U.S. public, in polling over the years, has tended to have no idea what the budget looks like, and — once informed — to favor a very different budget from the actual one at the time. I’m curious what each person campaigning for the presidency wants the federal budget to look like. Will they put their money (well, our money) where their mouths are? They say they care about many good things, but will they show us how much they care about each of them?

I strongly suspect that most people would recognize the significant differences, and have strong opinions about them, if we were shown a basic pie-chart of spending priorities from each candidate.

DISARMAMENT & SECURITY .

An article by Peter Castagno in Citizen Truth (All Citizen Truth original articles licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License. )

Defense companies Lockheed Martin and Raytheon scored huge Pentagon contracts in anticipation of military conflict with Iran following the Trump administration’s assassination of Iran’s most powerful general late Thursday. Lockheed won a $1.93 billion contract to expand production of the controversial F-35 fighter jet program and Raytheon gained a $758 million deal to manufacture advanced medium-range air to air missiles (AMRAAM).

Defense stocks have soared in recent days as investors have expressed excitement at the prospect of greater violence in the Middle East:

“Big-name defense stocks are rising, with Northrop Grumman leading the rally last Friday. Northrop has risen 8% in the last five days, while Lockheed Martin and Raytheon have jumped around 4% and 2%, respectively,” reported Forbes Monday.

“The S&P 500 Aerospace & Defense (Industry) Index rose 3.7%, while the Dow Jones U.S. Aerospace & Defense Index went up 3.6% in the past five trading sessions,” as per Nasdaq on Tuesday.

General Dynamics also scored a $98 million contract to work on docking phased maintenance with the Naval Sea Systems Command.

Sarah Anderson, director of the Global Economy Project of the Institute for Policy Studies, notes that because top defense executives receive stock-based pay, they are already reaping a windfall from Trump’s military strike.
‘The Game Has Changed’

Amid escalating tensions with Iran, the US is deploying roughly 4,500 soldiers, as well as a wide array of ships, planes and other weapons to the Middle East.

Defense Secretary Mark Esper, who was Raytheon’s top lobbyist for seven years, said that “the game has changed” shortly before President Trump’s assassination of a top Iranian general on Thursday, which marked the first time the U.S. killed a top foreign military leader since World War II. Iraqi PM Abdul-Mahdi said that Soleimani was in Iraq by his invitation in an effort to deescalate tensions with Saudi Arabia.

The Iraqi parliament has since voted to expel U.S. forces from the country, which Trump responded to with threats of “very big” sanctions “like they’ve never seen before, ever.” Trump also threatened Iran with retaliation “perhaps in a disproportionate manner,” including destruction of cultural sites if the country takes military action, a threat the Pentagon has contradicted. The president has previously spoken of his support for torture and “taking out” the families of terrorists, all while civilian deaths abroad have sharply increased during his presidency.

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Does military spending lead to economic decline and collapse?

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Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the assassination was to prevent an imminent attack on U.S. forces planned by the general, but provided no evidence for his claim, and other officials have offered divergent accounts. The Washington Post reported on Sunday that Pompeo had been pushing the move for months.
Economist Dean Baker noted that some defense stocks suspiciously surged before the attack:

Revolving Door

As Citizen Truth wrote earlier this week, critics argue that the revolving door between private defense contractors and the Pentagon improperly influences public policy to benefit private weapons manufacturers:

“In November 2018, the Project on Government Oversight (POGO) released an analysis of the Trump administration’s defense sector, finding 645 instances of federal employees working for the top 20 Pentagon contractors in fiscal year 2016. Most of them worked as lobbyists, where they used public funds allocated to them through Pentagon contracts to vouch for policies that would help their private employers profit.”

U.S. Department of Defense Secretary Mark Esper spent seven years as the top lobbyist at Raytheon, refused to recuse himself from decisions involving his former employer, and has refused to wait before returning to Raytheon after his public service. U.S. Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy is a former Lockheed Martin executive.

Former Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson, who resigned in 2019, was ranked by the nonprofit government watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington as one of the “most corrupt members of Congress” for her work with Lockheed Martin. In 2015, Lockheed Martin paid a $4.7 million settlement to the Department of Justice after the revelation it had used taxpayer funds to hire lobbyists, including Wilson, for a $2.4 billion contract.

Critics argue that proponents of military action should disclose their ties to the arms industry. Beyond the numerous Pentagon officials connected to weapons manufacturers, many congressmembers are supported by companies like Lockheed Martin and hold stock in the defense industry. As Lee Fang reported Monday night, multiple pundits who have praised the recent assassination neglected to reveal their financial interests in the arms corporations preparing for war.

Defense Spending

The Intercept’s Lee Fang reported last year that Lockheed Martin CEO Marillyn Hewson said that “bipartisan support for defense spending,” favored her company, in addition to geopolitical tensions with countries like Iran.

House Democrats approved a $738 billion military package last month, even as it was stripped of amendments that would have forbidden the president from starting wars without congressional approval. Congress approved the colossal spending package a week after the Afghanistan papers were published, revealing how the U.S. government systematically deceived the public about the war in Afghanistan for 18 years.

In October, an Ex-Pentagon official said he was fired for speaking out about defense companies ripping off taxpayers. A 2016 Politico profile described the official, Shay Assad, as “the most hated man in the Pentagon.”

“Traditionally, defense stocks tend to outperform the market during periods of budget growth,” reported CCN. A CNBC analysis found that “shares of defense companies outperform the broader market in the six months after a crisis event in the Middle East.”

DISARMAMENT & SECURITY .

An article by Jake Johnson on December 12 in Common Dreams (licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License)

More than 180 House Democrats joined a nearly united Republican caucus Wednesday night to pass a sweeping $738 billion military spending bill that gives President Donald Trump his long-sought “Space Force,” free rein to wage endless wars, and a green light to continue fueling the humanitarian catastrophe in Yemen.

Just 48 members of the House, including 41 Democrats, voted against the 2020 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which increases the Pentagon budget by $22 billion. The final vote was 377-48.

“This NDAA is atrocious, and it’s very depressing that only 48 members of congress voted against it,” tweeted anti-war group CodePink.

In a floor speech ahead of Wednesday’s vote, Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), the most vocal opponent of the NDAA in the House, said “there are many things you can call the bill, but it’s Orwellian to call it progressive.” Khanna was standing across the aisle from Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.), who hailed the measure as “the most progressive defense bill we have passed in decades.”

“Let’s speak in facts,” said Khanna. “This defense budget is $120 billion more than what Obama left us with. That could fund free public college for every American. It could fund access to high-speed, affordable internet for every American. But it’s worse. The bipartisan amendment to stop the war in Yemen: stripped by the White House. The bipartisan amendment to stop the war in Iran: stripped by the White House.”

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According to the New York Times, Smith—chairman of the House Armed Services Committee—negotiated several provisions of the NDAA directly with Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser.

“It was Mr. Kushner who helped broker a deal to create the Space Force, a chief priority of the president’s, in exchange for the paid parental leave [for federal employees],” the Times reported Wednesday. “It was also Mr. Kushner who intervened on measures targeting Saudi Arabia that would have prohibited arms sales or military assistance to the Saudi-led intervention in Yemen. He said they were nonstarters for the White House.”

Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (I-Vt.) foreign policy adviser Matt Duss expressed outrage that Democrats allowed Kushner—who has close ties to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman—to kill an amendment that would have helped end U.S. complicity in the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), who voted against the NDAA, noted in a statement that the final version also stripped out her House-passed amendment that would have repealed the 2002 Iraq Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF).

“With the release of the Afghanistan Papers, it is especially imperative that we take a hard look at our military spending and authorizations,” said Lee, the only member of Congress to vote against the war in Afghanistan in 2001. “I can tell you: it is an appalling, but not shocking read for those of us who have been working to stop endless war. It’s past time to end the longest war in United States history, withdraw our troops, and bring our servicemembers home.”

The 2020 NDAA now heads to the Republican-controlled Senate, where it is expected to pass. In a tweet ahead of the House vote on Wednesday, Trump praised the bill and said he would sign it into law “immediately.”

“New rule: Every member of Congress who voted to give the most corrupt, unhinged, and unstable president in history $738 billion to fight endless wars, fund a bogus space force, and put our troops at risk must never tell us that we cannot afford Medicare for All or a Green New Deal,” Warren Gunnels, Sanders’ senior adviser, tweeted Wednesday night. “Ever.”