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<div class="header reader-header reader-show-element" dir="ltr"> <font
size="-2"><a class="domain reader-domain"
href="https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/05/17/2020-elections-its-militarism-and-the-military-budget-stupid/">https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/05/17/2020-elections-its-militarism-and-the-military-budget-stupid/</a></font>
<h1 class="reader-title">2020 Elections: It’s Militarism and the
Military Budget Stupid!</h1>
<span class="post_author_intro">by</span> <span
class="post_author" itemprop="author"><a
href="https://www.counterpunch.org/author/cuxere/"
rel="nofollow">Ajamu Baraka</a> - May 17, 2019</span></div>
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<p>U.S. ships are involved in provocative “freedom of
navigation” exercises in the South China Sea and other
ships gather ominously in the Mediterranean Sea while
National Security Advisor John Bolton and Secretary of
State Michael Pompeo along with convicted war criminal
Elliot Abrams conspire to save the people of Venezuela
with another illegal “regime change” intervention. But
people are drawn to the latest adventures of Love and
Hip-Hop, the Mueller report, and Game of Thrones. In
fact, while millions can recall with impressive detail
the proposals and strategies of the various players in
HBO’s latest saga, they can’t recall two details about
the pending military budget that will likely pass in
Congress with little debate, even though Trump’s budget
proposal represents another obscene increase of public
money to the tune of $750 billion.</p>
<p>This bipartisan rip-off could not occur without the
willing collusion of the corporate media, which slants
coverage to support the interests of the ruling elite or
decides to just ignore an issue like the ever-expanding
military budget.</p>
<p>The effectiveness of this collusion is reflected in the
fact that not only has this massive theft of public
money not gotten much coverage in the mainstream
corporate media, but also it only received sporadic
coverage in the alternative media. The liberal-left
media is distracted enough by the theatrics of the Trump
show to do the ideological dirty work of the elites.</p>
<p>Spending on war will consume almost 70% of the budget
and be accompanied by cuts in public spending for
education, housing, the environment, public
transportation, jobs trainings, food support programs
like food stamps and Meals on Wheels, as well as
Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. Most of the
neoliberal candidates running in the Democratic Party’s
electoral process, however, haven’t spoken a word in
opposition to Trump’s budget.</p>
<p>The public knows that the Democratic Party’s candidates
are opposed to Trump’s wall on the southern border, and
they expect to hear them raise questions about the $8.6
billion of funding the wall. But while some of the
Democrats may oppose the wall, very few have challenged
the details of the budget that the <a
href="https://uspeacecouncil.org/uspc-statement-urgent-action-is-needed-to-defeat-the-destructive-2020-military-budget-in-congress/">U.S.
Peace Council indicates</a>. For example:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“$576 billion baseline budget for the Department of
Defense; an additional $174 billion for the Pentagon’s
Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO), i.e., the war
budget; $93.1 billion for the Department of Veterans
Affairs; $51.7 billion for Homeland Security; $42.8
billion for State Department; an additional $26.1
billion for State Department’s Overseas Contingency
Operations (regime change slush fund); $16.5 billion
for the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear
Security Administration (nuclear weapons budget); $21
billion for NASA (militarizing outer space?); plus
$267.4 billion for all other government agencies,
including funding for FBI and Cybersecurity in the
Department of Justice.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The Peace Council also highlights the following two
issues: First, the total US military and war budget has
jumped from $736.4 billion to $989.0 billion since 2015.
That is a $252.6 billion (about 35%) increase in five
years. Second, the simultaneous cuts in the government’s
non-military spending are reflected in the proposed
budget.</p>
<p>Here are some of biggest proposed budget cuts:</p>
<blockquote>
<p><strong>+ $1.5 trillion in cuts to Medicaid</strong>over
10 years, implementing work requirements as well as
eliminating the Medicaid expansion under the
Affordable Care Act. The budget instead adds <strong>$1.2
trillion for a “Market Based Health Care Grant”</strong>—
that is, a block grant to states, instead of paying by
need. It’s not clear whether that would be part of
Medicaid.</p>
<p><strong>+ An $845 billion cut to Medicare</strong>over
10 years. That is about a <strong>10 percent cut</strong>.</p>
<p><strong>+ $25 billion in cuts to Social Security</strong>over
10 years, including cuts to disability insurance.</p>
<p><strong>+ A $220 billion cut to Supplemental
Nutrition Assistance Program</strong><strong>(SNAP)
over 10 years</strong>, which is commonly referred
to as food stamps, and includes mandatory work
requirements. The program currently serves around 45
million people.</p>
<p><strong>+ A $21 billion cut to Temporary Assistance
for Needy Families</strong>, an already severely
underfunded cash-assistance program for the nation’s
poorest.</p>
<p><strong>+ $207 billion in cuts to the student loan
program, </strong>eliminating the Public Service
Loan Forgiveness program and cutting subsidized
student loans.</p>
<p>+ Overall, there is a <strong>9 percent cut to
non-defense programs</strong>, which would hit <strong>Section
8 housing vouchers, public housing programs, Head
Start, the Women, Infants, and Children (WIC)
nutrition program, and Low-Income Home Energy
Assistance Program</strong>, among others. Here’s a
breakdown from the Center for Budget and Policy
Priorities, a liberal leaning think tank:</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The working classes and oppressed peoples of the U.S.
and around the world can no longer afford the
unchallenged ideological positions of the Pentagon
budget and the associated expenditures for so-called
defense that are considered sacrosanct in the U.S. They
cannot afford that much of the U.S. public is not
concerned with issues of so-called foreign policy that
the military budget is seen as part.</p>
<p>The racist appeals of U.S. national chauvinism in the
form of “Make America Great” and the Democrats’ version
of “U.S. Exceptionalism” must be confronted and exposed
as the cross-class, white identity politics that they
are. The fact that supposedly progressive or even
“radical” politics does not address the issue of U.S.
expenditures on war and imperialism is reflective of a
politics that is morally and political bankrupt. But it
also does something else. It places those practitioners
firmly in the camp of the enemies of humanity.</p>
<p>The objective fact that large numbers of the public
accept that the U.S. can determine the leadership of
another sovereign nation while simultaneously being
outraged by the idea of a foreign power interfering in
U.S. elections demonstrates the mindboggling subjective
contradictions that exist in the U.S. For example – that
an Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez can assert that she will
defer to the leadership of her caucus on the issue of
Venezuela or that Barbara Lee can vote to bring Trump’s
budget proposal out of committee or that Biden can
proudly support Trump’s immoral backing of a neo-fascist
opposition in Venezuela <em>and</em>they will all get
away with those positions – reveals the incredible
challenge that we face in building an alternative
radical movement for peace, social justice and
people(s)-centered human rights.</p>
<p>So, we must join with <a
href="https://uspeacecouncil.org/uspc-statement-urgent-action-is-needed-to-defeat-the-destructive-2020-military-budget-in-congress/">U.S.
Peace Council</a> and the other members of the
Anti-war, pro-peace, and anti-imperialist communities in
the U.S. to “resist and oppose this military attack on
our communities, our livelihoods and our lives.” This is
an urgent and militant first step in reversing the
cultural support for violence and the normalization of
war that currently exists in the U.S. Now is the moment
to demand that Congress reject and reverse the Trump
Administration’s military budget and the U.S.
Government’s militaristic foreign policy. But now is
also the moment to commit to building a powerful
countermovement to take back the power over life and
death from the denizens of violence represented by the
rapacious 1%.</p>
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<p> <em><strong>Ajamu Baraka</strong> is the national
organizer of the Black Alliance for Peace and was the
2016 candidate for vice president on the Green Party
ticket. He is an editor and contributing columnist for
the Black Agenda Report and contributing columnist for
Counterpunch magazine. </em> </p>
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