Pentagon Funding for War and Weapons Passes, COVID-19 Relief for Workers Does NotOn December 11, Congress overwhelmingly passed $740.5 billion for the Pentagon, its weapons and wars. This is for one year only. The vote in the House of Representatives for the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) was 335-78 and in the Senate 84-13. Both are enough for the two-thirds majority needed to override a threatened veto by President Trump. He has ten days (not including Sundays), which means by December 23, to veto, sign or allow it to become law without his signature.
According to Inhofe and the vote in Congress more generally, it is Pentagon funding "that makes our country more secure, and it supports our troops who defend it." The people, through their broad and many demonstrations, have raised that security is not guaranteed through the use of force and violence, abroad or at home. Affirming the peoples' rights, including rights to health care, housing, jobs, safety and peace, is what makes the country and world more secure, not troops and weapons. The United States has by far the largest military budget on the planet, more than the next 10 countries combined. When funding for homeland security, policing and incarceration is included, it accounts for about 64.5 per cent of all federal discretionary funds. Various additional sources of funds for war in the general budget means the Pentagon funds are more than $1 trillion every year. The vote by Congress reflects the war economy and war government of the U.S., which the president necessarily safeguards. Biden will do so, just as Obama, Bush and others did before him. It is an economy and government that guarantee funding for war and aggression and all kinds of interference abroad, militarized policing and violence at home, while leaving the well-being of the people to chance. Horrific Threat of Government Shutdown Continues |
Senator Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma
and chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee made clear the
pro-war stand of Congress when it comes to public funds: "There's a
reason this bill gets done every single year for the last 59 years:
It's the most important bill we'll do all year." The same is not true
for COVID-19 relief.
With an economy
as wealthy as the U.S., the problem is not a lack of funds, it is the
direction of the country based on a war economy and government. It is
private control of the wealth produced by working people by a handful
of oligarchs for their own private interests. Indeed, the country's 651
billionaires have gained so much wealth just during the coronavirus
pandemic that they could fully pay for a one-time $3,000 stimulus
cheque for every child, woman and man in the United States -- and still
be wealthier than they were before the crisis.
