No surprise ….
(The US Defense Budget shrunk only 4 times since 1996)
The US IS sending BILLIONS in weapons and military aid to the Ukraine….
The General’s in the Pentagon ARE worried about China taking advantage of a American President who doesn’t seem to want push back too hard ….
The dream about taking Defense money and spending it on Social programs is just that….
A Dream…
Of course the other thing is the Defense money IS a jobs program…
And since Democrats HAVE to do whatever West Virginia Democratic Senator Manchin wants?
If he’s ok with the final money number?
It’s a go….
Democrats’ inability to agree on defense legislation in a narrowly divided Congress, and the bill’s bipartisan tradition, has given Republican defense hawks ample leverage to secure a larger topline.
“The breakdown is unfortunate [and] not too surprising,” said Julia Gledhill, an analyst at the Project on Government Oversight. “Democrats just don’t want to look weak on defense ahead of an expected red wave this fall, especially given the war in Ukraine and record inflation.”
Rep. Jim Cooper (D-Tenn.), who opposed increasing the defense bill’s price tag during last month’s Armed Services deliberations, said the likelihood of a funding increase is “an indication that Democrats can’t pass a bill on their own.”
“It’s a bipartisan bill that’s necessary for national defense,” he said. “We certainly don’t have the numbers in the Senate, but we may even lack them in the House.”
In rebuking Biden’s budget, the House and Senate defense bills also scramble many Pentagon plans to scrap aging yet popular weapons to save money….
…
For some lawmakers, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was a watershed moment in cementing a larger defense budget. Members have passed several tranches of aid for Kyiv, including a $40 billion package enacted in May, roughly half of which flowed to Defense Department accounts.
“I think it’s just this recognition among more and more members that we live in a much more dangerous world and we’re at risk,” Brown said.
The conflict, which has seen tens of thousands more troops deployed to Europe to bolster NATO countries and billions allocated to a years-long effort to replenish stocks of weapons shipped to Ukraine, has been “a total paradigm shift” in the debate over long-term military spending, said Rep. Joe Courtney(D-Conn.), chair of the House Armed Services’ Seapower panel.
“I think the biggest intervening event is Ukraine,” Courtney said of the defense spending debate.
“If you look at what was different this year, I do think defense spending and the defense budget just has a totally different place right now,” he added.
Several Armed Services Democrats indeed changed their minds on the topline with even more money at stake this year….