The One Question Bernie Sanders Hasn't Yet Answered

"A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death." -Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.


After Bernie danced across the stage to greet Ellen DeGeneres for an appearance on her show yesterday (to the disco music of 'Burn, Baby, Burn'), he sat down to address some serious questions from the host. Right out of the box her first one was framed thusly:

"A lot of people who have a lot of money pay a lot of money (in taxes). So why isn't that amount of money going to the people who don't make that amount of money? Why is it not allocated in the way that you're saying?"

Bernie answered far too ambiguously:

"Well, it's a good question and it has to do with we're spending money in areas where we should not be spending money and we're not spending money where we should be spending money"

He then went into his stock response about "why this so" and "the top one percent owning as much wealth as the bottom ninety percent" - but still not connecting this directly to the misplaced spending - which is almost entirely on DEFENSE!   So little wonder Ellen had to keep probing to try to get more explanation.

She went on:

"I still don't understand how we can have that extreme wealth and the middle class is disappearing. ...I understand you're saying there's loopholes but there should be enough money to help everybody else"

Sanders then went into the "incredible greed" of corporate America, but still dodged the 'elephant' sitting in the room pooping all over, the spending of the Military Industrial Complex (which in this fiscal year is estimated to reach $662 billion, this on top of the $4 TRILLION we have already squandered in Iraq and Afghanistan - and which Obama's extension in the latter will see us wasting even more.)

Ellen needed help, but Bernie didn't give it. She vaguely realized that even the obscene wealth of billionaires,  the overall tax loopholes of the wealthy and tax havens for the corporations could not account for the wealth gap Sanders cited. It was then his job, to name directly the atrocious spending on the defense establishment - especially since 9/11 - which has now reached an insane proportion.

See e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2012/07/muricans-need-to-wake-up-about-military.html

But he didn't do it, continually going back to the "billionaires".  Yes, their greed and wealth explains part of the gap, but not all. The real bleed down of wealth is a result of obscene defense spending.

In August, 2002, former Defense Analyst Chuck Spinney –  appearing on a Bill Moyers ‘NOW’ (PBS) segment- examined how the Pentagon had somehow ‘misplaced’ (couldn’t account for) $1.2 trillion of taxpayer money. He noted that this reckless, careless bookkeeping miscue disclosed the U.S. was no longer a democracy or even a Republic, since a key branch of gov’t had become totally unaccountable.

Three years later, after the Bushies had ramped up defense spending to dramatic new heights, what amounted to 2.4% of GDP as opposed to 1.2%, Spinney predicted it would incept a “war on Social Security and Medicare”. He predicted the total costs of military spending, including in Iraq, and Afghanistan and a de facto perpetual ‘war on terror’ (as well as a burgeoning national security state) would become so great that the major social programs would be slashed to pay for the deficits engendered. How large is the military money pit?  What sort of monster must it ‘feed’?

The United States currently maintains 702 military 'installations' in 63 foreign countries (it has 4,471 bases altogether), according to the Defense Department's annual budget statement. These figures don't include bases in Iraq and Afghanistan. We also spend more on military weapons than the next 25 nations combined.

None of this Bernie mentioned although he spared no opprobrium for the billionaires. My take is that this presents a glaring gap in his inequality arguments and will have to be addressed as further debates unfold and questions become more probing. What will not do is answering Ellen in the way he did, i.e. "we're spending money where we should not be spending money" etc.  Because as a moderator the question I'd then ask - which Ellen ought to have - is:  "Spending  where we should not be spending on WHAT?"

What is Bernie afraid of?  I suspect that he doesn't want to be attacked from yet another front, i.e. "weak on defense" when he's already taking so much heat for being a "socialist".  And yet, nearly  all of Bernie's proposals - from free college tuition to expanding Social Security - would require money from the only money pot that can provide it: defense spending!

Sanders' team needs to work out now how they will address the mammoth defense spending issue and integrate it into their narrative. It will be tricky and admittedly dangerous - no one wants to go up against the MIC - but without doing it all his social support proposals will come off as unrealistic and unachievable.

Sanders' supporters will be watching!

Latest Budget Deal Seeks to Preserve Military Bullshit Spending - Spare it from Sequester

"No one has recently said to me, 'You can only get so angry,' and escaped with their hide intact, probably because I tend to spend my time with people who know better, and the people who know me know better than to try and tell me I'm making too much of things in this diseased day and age, when "things" make plenty of themselves without my help."- William Rivers Pitt, in 'It Only Hurts When I Laugh' - on smirkingchimp.com


Well we now know, after Paul Ryan's conscious (or maybe unconscious) admission this morning on CBS Early Show, that this new budget deal is designed to spare the military -defense enclave about $23 billion in sequester cuts that otherwise would have gone into effect. Hence, any deficit savings are on the backs of the poor, hungry kids, the unemployed. 

Ryan openly admitted his "concern" about military spending cuts in the sequester so was "pleased" that $63 b of defense sequester cuts are "offset" by $85b in gov't "automatic spending". Unmentioned is that unemployment extension was off the table, as were any new tax increases - which would have helped limit the deficits by nearly $150b within two years. But oh no, none of the Reepos want higher taxes - so the Demos obliged them. The above offset - or rather spending cut imbalance between defense and "discretionary budget allocations" amounts to nearly $23b. That amount will now allow the defense industry-Pentagon to go ahead with the building of 2,335 F-35 bombers at a cost of 3/4 billion each. But oh no, can't cut this piece of waste! Too important to line the pockets of defense contractors! See also:
http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/2013/09/joint-strike-fighter-lockheed-martin

The fact is that in real terms, military spending has exploded the past 11 years, thanks to the American people being scared shitless into believing them there "terrorists" will get them if they don't have massive, sustained and insane  "defense" spending.  Back in 2011 it was noted that Pentagon spending had doubled since 2000, to $790 b a year. This number included both yearly "supplementals" to fund the Afghan conflict and occupation, along with $553b for the base Pentagon budget.

Over the past decade this translates into a pure growth factor of nearly $2 trillion. Thus, Repub Tom Coburn (OK) was correct (for once) when he admitted in a 2011 statement that Pentagon spending :

 "is higher in constant dollars than at any time in the last 60 years, including the Korean War, Vietnam and all the Defense Dept. spending during the Reagan years ($2.2 trillion)".

It is also more than the next 25 nations' military spending combined. The gist of all this? In fact there are no real cuts to military spending in any absolute terms, but only an estimated "trim down" of roughly 23% in the projected INCREASES in Pentagon spending over the next ten years! The point here? Contrary to the bloviators' bollocks of "jeopardizing national security", just the opposite is true: the Pentagon base budget will still be larger than it is today by 2021! This necessarily means, given the zero sum resources we have, everyone else will be much poorer. That means an even more shattered and useless infrastructure with crumbling roads, cracking sewer and water mains and collapsing bridges....and a much more likely intolerable domestic environment over all.

 Anyone who doesn't see this as the distinctive symptom of a nation in decline is a foursquare idiot.

Does the U.S. REALLY need 702 military 'installations' in 63 foreign countries (it has 4,471 bases altogether), according to the Defense Department's  2012 budget statement? ( Figures that don't include bases in Iraq and Afghanistan.) We're talking about our military presence in nations like Germany, South Korea, and Japan. ALL of these represent redundant costs since the wars that incepted the bases are now more than a half century over! While the total cost of these bases is kept secret, the best analysis I've seen estimates their ten-year cost at approximately $1 trillion. Cut that fat and waste, and unemployment insurance could easily be extended and a Farm Bill could be passed that doesn't kill food stamps to the tune of $40 billion over 10 years.

So why the fuck are we blowing so much on this military  bullshit when our own people need help - with 16 million kids going to bed hungry each night - and our infrastructure falling into massive disrepair?  The reason is simple: the defense contractors know if they can squirrel away some amount of jobs into every congressional district they essentially have all the politicos in those districts - now numbering in the thousands - by the brains and balls. They know that being seen to surrender jobs in this low aggregate demand environment would likely see a congress critter getting "primaried"  by some military spending whore, like our own Doug Lamborn here in Colo. Springs, e,g,


Lamborn in his most recent comments to The Denver Post ('Defense Cuts Put Lamborn in Tough Fight'. Nov. 8  p. 5A) on the importance of military spending,  is on record as saying he:

 "intends to find other places to chop, including entitlements like food stamps and Medicare, to shield the military."

The Post piece also went on to note:

"Lamborn receives his heftiest campaign contributions from military contractors. Just in this election cycle, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman- both with offices in Colorado Springs - gave him a combined $10,000, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. He has also received contributions from Honeywell International and Boeing."

Where will it end? Sadly, as the yen to further bloat the military curries more favor from political Jacobins, traitors and numbskulls, the target of  REEP austerity hawks will continue to be "entitlements".  That essentially is what Ryan implied this morning, as he professed so much "concern about our debt". Funny.....,these fuckers when in power don't worry about debt or deficits at all. Wasn't it Dick(-head) Cheney who actually said: "Deficits don't matter!"  No, I guess they don't when Reep-Turds are in power and blow up the budgets with unpaid for "wars" and tax cuts so the next Dem Prez gets the blame and has to clean up the mess - by cutting  domestic spending!  These Rat fuckers won't be satisfied until we're all homeless, sick, dead or maybe ....walking dead.

Am I angry"? Fuck YES! And if you're not then either you're not paying attention or you're already among the Walking Dead!