Posted on 06/01/2024 5:59:22 PM PDT by RandFan
Republican lawmakers are facing an internal battle over defense spending as prominent Republicans including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) and Sen. Roger Wicker (Miss.), the top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, are pushing for big increases while conservatives are raising alarms over the debt.
The battle within the GOP over how much to increase defense spending to deter threats from Russia, China and Iran will burst into public next month when the Senate is set to debate the annual National Defense Authorization Act.
McConnell and Wicker are laying the groundwork for that debate by calling for major increases in defense spending above what the Biden administration and the Republican chair of the House Appropriations Committee, Rep. Tom Cole (Okla.), have proposed for 2025.
They are squaring off against a small group of fiscal conservatives in both chambers who wield outsized leverage in the narrow House GOP majority and want to keep a strict cap on defense and nondefense spending levels.
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) at the start of the 118th Congress called on Republicans “to give up the sacred cow that says we will never touch a dollar in military.”
On Thursday, he accused Wicker of wanting to “explode” the defense budget.
“Big spending Republicans want to explode military budget. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: both parties are to blame for $34T debt!” Paul wrote on the social media site X.
Paul joined Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) last year in introducing legislation to require the Department of Defense to pass an independent audit and mandate that any defense component that fails to complete a clean audit return 1 percent of its budget to the Treasury Department.
(Excerpt) Read more at thehill.com ...
National defense against armed aggression is the FIRST PRIORITY of a national government.
Wrong. Defense done right (which includes power and competence in spades) deters aggressors. This does not include stupid shit like destabilizing Syria a la Hillarity (which had virtually nothing to do with defense spending -- that and others were geo-political mistakes.)
TODAY, we are at near historical lows since WW2 in defense spending as a % of GDP, but unlike the Bill Clinton years, we have much more formidable foes to face. Those enemies see our weakness and are acting as would be expected.
Realistically given how much the Democrat party has screwed up the military, no amount of money will fix it.
I advise young people to get as far away from the Democrat run military as they can.
So you will not have competant, motivated people to operate all those expensive machines, so don’t bother.
All you will have is Fags deviates, and Democrats.
Up to you to figure that one out.
Despite over the top arguments, I can understand conservatives opposing involvement in Ukraine.
However, when you see them here opposing military spending, seeing no threat from China, ranting about the “globohomos” and telling young people to abandon the military -
That is a serious bunch of screwballs.
The Federal Government now spends more money on Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, interest on the National Debt, and defense than it collects in taxes. So without cuts to those categories, even if the government totally eliminated all other spending, the budget still wouldn't balance.
These massive deficits in spending every year, by every president of late, has kept the system barely functioning. The only ‘growth’ we get now has been massive deficits and debt, and Republican and Democrat voters show no interest in stopping that spending.
We have an open border. Spending money on our military is worth nothing. More money for trannies and homos. No money for the invasion going on. Cut it to 0.
Armed aggression against our border, not half a world away.
I’m with you. Start with cutting out all of these worthless government agencies.
Close the border.
Quit sending aide to crap countries. It’s never used to help their citizens anyway.
Deport all “new-comers”-they are either not the cream if the crop, psychologically disturbed, criminals or terrorists. They are not refugees.
“We are currently a thousand times worse.”
They’ve done everything in the DoI list of grievances against the King, except for raising the savage Indian tribes against us, but with the wide-open borders it’s like we’re getting that now.
Rand never wants to cut anywhere but military and senior citizens. Why can’t he ever want to cut elsewhere? Two groups most likely to vote republican. One reason rand won’t go anywhere in leadership. He’s not very good at picking groups or agencies to cut.
Or just tax the billionaires. Tax the liberal churches. Tax college endowments. End the carried interest deduction. Tax corporations on worldwide income. 70% tax on remittances, to start. There are lots of ways to solve the problem but the politicians are bought off.
Go cry. And read some history through the tears. Do you know what happens when Empires overextend themselves militarily? They collapse from it.
Plus what the heck do you think you are defending? The USA is rotting away from the inside. The Communists and the Islamists are INSIDE THE FREAKING BORDER. Are new aircraft carriers and missiles going to solve that?
The country is dying from cancer, the house is being foreclosed, and you want to go on a shopping spree at Cabela's. That's what you hawks sound like to me.
Insane. And deluded.
Perfect analogy.
On this, yes.
The Republicans have always been plagued with an isolationist faction. That faction is now rearing it’s head thinking it is important and saving America
As opposed to neocons who have no interest in saving America.
I’m not an isolationist.
I’m just not an interventionist-at-all-costs.
Pick your battles. Keep the military lean and smart.
Stop giving Medicare Medicaid money to people who never
contributed.That’s where the loss is !
We are spending more and getting less. That is not going to work very well.
Moreover, the 69th Intersectional Dildo brigade is not going to win any wars, or even any battles. They might be able to run the concentration camps into which the Democrats want to put their political opponents, but against a peer enemy force, they will be wiped out.
As it stands now, a war with Russia or China is a war we will lose. War with both of them will be a catastrophe. We must have changes in our military forces to solve this problem, and our current political leaders are not going to be part of the solution because they are the cause of the problems.
Much of the money we do spend on "national defense" is being spent on the wrong activities. The spending is being controlled by the wrong people. The spending is not for its' declared purpose.
Best to be extremely cautious about increasing any of it until these other problems are resolved.
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