The House and Senate have passed the Defense Authorzation Act, and it now goes to the president. To say this is a bloated and unnecessary budget is an understatement. The military asked for about the same base budget that they received last year, nearly $496 billion. Congress gave them about $25 billion more than they asked for -- $521 billion for their base budget.
That does not cover the costs of the wars we are waging. The military had asked for $85.4 billion to fund those wars, but Congress gave them only $63.7 billion. Don't be fooled though. It is common for Congress to increase war funding throughout the year, and they will undoubtably do that again -- especially since President Obama is already saying he wants to keep more troops in Afghanistan than was previously reported, and he continues to ramp up the new war in Iraq/Syria. This cut in war spending is just a game of smoke and mirrors, and spending will not be that low in the final analysis.
What does this mean? Military spending was already eating up more than half of the federal discretionary spending budget, and with this increased spending (combined with cuts in domestic spending programs), may equal as much as 60% of that budget (as stated by Senator Sanders in the graphic above). This is ridiculous. We are ignoring the needs of hurting Americans while increasing an already bloated military budget. We spend nearly half of the entire world's military spending, and far more than any other country (friend or enemy).
And don't think the increase is going to our troops. The bill actually cuts their scheduled pay raise from the already insufficient 1.8% to only 1.0%. It also increases the amount soldiers must pay for prescriptions, cuts the amount for off-base housing, and cut millions to support military base commissaries. The extra money will instead go into the bank accounts of corporations (many of whom are making weapons and military supplies the Pentagon has said it doesn't need or want). It also goes toward maintaining around 900 military bases around the world -- an outrageous number that is not needed for our national defense (but is to intimidate other countries into bowing to the will of the American corporate empire).
We should be significantly cutting our military budget, and using the money saved to help people in this country. But that won't happen because the elected officials of both political parties are afraid of being labeled as being "soft" on defense. They are afraid they won't be re-elected if they cut the bloated military budget -- because the corporations and other fear mongers have been very successful in duping the American public.