The $1.7 trillion federal spending bill includes an $858 billion annual defense budget. How come “how are you going to pay for it” is never asked about endless war?

The military-industrial complex is off the rails.

@rbreich I wonder if there are any issues in the world that might make us think military superiority is something desirable 🤔🤔🤔
@tonic @rbreich there’s superior and there’s “spending a non-trivial fraction of GDP on weapons and marerials we don’t use. It’s mostly slush money being funneled to defense contractors.
@unsaturated @rbreich so you’re saying it’s bad we don’t use the weapons but I don’t agree 😅🤷🏻‍♂️ meanwhile , there’s a case for having them : they’re what’s standing between our local naive socialists and our very cynical and violent foreign adversaries … I remember when folks were saying anti missile defense was too expensive and making us less safe because we diminished MAD with the Russians … color me unconvinced 😅🤷🏻‍♂️
@tonic @rbreich I’m saying we are getting fleeced by defense contractors
@unsaturated @rbreich and you can say it all you want (because they contribute to the defense of your freedom to say it)
@tonic @unsaturated @rbreich We could acheive exactly the same outcome with 1/3 to 1/2 of the budget. I have contracted for the DoD and seen up-close how wasteful their spending is. They know Congress will never tell them no so they spend with abandon. Then have "blow the budget" spending sprees at the end of the fiscal year to justify their budget and make sure it never decreases. I am 100% in favor of strong, superior defense. But there is no doubt, to me, that the DoD is wasteful AF
@iconify @unsaturated @rbreich when you see that the star weapons of the Ukraine war are artillery and shoulder launchers , it makes you wonder where it all goes that’s for sure