----- Original Message -----
From: shane_digital
Sent: Sunday, September 28, 2008 7:54 PM
Subject: With All Eyes on the Bailout, House Passes Trillion-Dollar Defense Bill
With All Eyes on the Bailout, House Passes Trillion-Dollar Defense Bill
By Joshua Holland
AlterNet
Posted September 26, 2008.
It's 'empire spending,' not 'defense spending.'
On Wednesday, the House passed a mammoth defense bill by a 392-39
vote. It's expected to clear the Senate with little difficulty next week.
It was part of a trillion-dollar stop-gap measure to keep programs
running through next March, allowing lawmakers to skip town without
passing a final budget. The Associated Press reports, "The legislation
came together in a remarkably secret process that concentrated
decision-making power in the hands of a few lawmakers."
In keeping with the tradition of recent years, Bush held a gun to his
own head and threatened to pull the trigger if his demands weren't
met. According to the AP, "To earn President Bush's signature rather
than a veto, House and Senate negotiators dropped several provisions
he opposed. They include a ban on private interrogators in U.S.
military detention facilities and what would have amounted to
congressional veto power over a security pact with Iraq."
In other words, Congress also maintained recent tradition, swearing
not to give Bush a blank check and then whipping out their pens and
signing a blank check.
The number that the House sent to the Senate for "defense" -- $612
billion for the coming year -- is eye-popping. Imagine a stack of
612,000 million-dollar bills. Quite a pile.
That number's a sham, however. The budget calls for $68.6 billion for
the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan in 2009. War costs this year
totaled $182 billion, according to the Federation of American Scientists.
The House passed the Brobdingnagian spending measure 11 months after
George W. Bush vetoed a bill -- one passed with a lot of bipartisan
support -- that would have added $7 billion measly dollars per year to
the State Children's Health Insurance Program, covering 4 million more
uninsured children. You'd be hard-pressed to find a clearer sign of
national psychosis.
Here's what "defense" spending looks like in the era of Bush's "War on
Terror," according to official figures:
Click for larger version
(click for larger version)
But that's just the cash to feed the gaping maw of the Department of
Defense. Throw in a bit more than $50 billion for Homeland Security,
around $20 billion for the nuclear arsenal in the Department of
Energy's budget, about $10 billion for the Coast Guard, a similar
number for foreign "security assistance" and maybe another $125
billion -- according to one estimate -- in other defense-related
programs scattered throughout the federal budget.
Bush also requested $91 billion for the Department of Veterans Affairs
in 2009, up from $72 billion just three years ago. A generation of
damaged young men and women are going to cost more and more as the
years go by -- many post-traumatic injuries, for example, don't
manifest themselves for 10 or more years after people get out of
combat. In 2000, nine years after the first Gulf War, 56 percent of
those who had served in that conflict were receiving disability payments.
But wait, as they say on late-night infomercials, there's more!
All of this only finances our current military adventures. We're still
paying for Korea and Vietnam and Grenada and Panama and the first Gulf
War and Somalia and the Balkans and on and on. Estimates of just how
much of our national debt payments are from past military spending
vary wildly. Economist Robert Higgs calculated it like this:
I added up all past deficits (minus surpluses) since 1916 (when
the debt was nearly zero), prorated according to each year's ratio of
narrowly defined national security spending--military, veterans, and
international affairs--to total federal spending, expressing
everything in dollars of constant purchasing power. This sum is equal
to 91.2 percent of the value of the national debt held by the public
at the end of 2006. Therefore, I attribute that same percentage of the
government's net interest outlays in that year to past debt-financed
defense spending.
In 2006, he came up with a figure of $206.7 billion for interest
payments on past militarism. Add it all up, and we're talking about at
least a trillion dollars in military and homeland security spending.
If there were a million-dollar bill, you'd have to stack a million of
them to reach a trillion dollars.
Of course, very little of this is "defense." This is empire spending,
pure and simple ...
Empire
What's that? You want health care, education, affordable housing,
21st-century infrastructure?
Sorry, we've got other priorities.
http://www.alternet.org/workplace/100524/with_all_eyes_on_the_bailout%2C_house_passes_trillion-dollar_defense_bill/
######
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From: Kevin Lee Hammond
Sent: Monday, September 29, 2008 6:12 PM
Subject: Re: With All Eyes on the Bailout, House Passes Trillion-Dollar Defense
Bill
Both mccain and omama work for the SAME PEOPLE! When are you people
going to LEARN?! They BOTH know full well just what is going on and the whole
childishly naive idea that the elite who PICK whom EVER the dictator IS
actually give a damn how ANY of us vote is just absolutely LAUGHABLE! At the
risk of being a thousand times redundant, DO YOUR RESEARCH! The trilateral
commission and the cfrr ARE the REAL shot callers.
this whole so-called "election" is one of the biggest jokes in the world.
Expose The New World Order and let the chips fall where they may.
www.fightthenwo.org
www.roguegovernment.com
www.patriotsquestion911.com
www.bilderberg.org
www.conspiracyarchive.com
www.truthaction.org
www.stopthenorthamericanunion.com
######
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From: Kenneth Willing
Sent: Monday, September 29, 2008 8:42 PM
Subject: Re: With All Eyes on the Bailout, House Passes Trillion-Dollar Defense
Bill
I try to tell people the same thing.THEY SERVE THE SAME MASTERS and people look
at me like I am CRAZY! Wake up America,your vote means nothing and it hasn't
for a long time! They are PUPPETS.They do as they are told!
######
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From: wayne newton
Sent: Monday, September 29, 2008 9:13 PM
Subject: Re: With All Eyes on the Bailout, House Passes Trillion-Dollar Defense
Bill
Kenneth
Your 100% correct. The only difference between the two parties are the
name. All parties do serve the same masters, they are not in charge, they
follow orders from the same group. We all know who they are and what they are
called.....ILLUMINATI!!!!!!!!!!!!! The votes are a show, it gives the public
the sense that they are choosing, but we know its all a sham. Yes WAKE UP
AMERICA, WE ARE WATCHING THIS COUNTRY FALL BEFORE OUR EYES.We are watching our
freedoms being taken from us everyday!!!!!!!!!!!!
===
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