Eric Zuesse: Why The U.S. Debt-Limit ‘Debate’ Is A Charade Of ‘Democra…
Written by Eric Zuesse.
According to the U.S. federal Office of Management and Budget (OMB), U.S. military spending this year is $1.448T, and next year’s request is $1.510T. That is over half of all of the budget that the U.S. Congress and President have any control over and that the members of the Senate and House did and can vote on, called “discretionary spending” as opposed to the compulsory spending that’s required in order to fulfill on the U.S. Government’s existing contractual obligations that the Congress and President in all prior years had passed laws — including the Social Security Act — committing future U.S. Governments (such as now) to be paying.
An AP news report dated 29 March 2023 opened by saying, “In the federal budget standoff, the majority of U.S. adults are asking lawmakers to pull off the impossible: Cut the overall size of government, but also devote more money to the most popular and expensive programs.”
It suggested that the voters are idiots, but that’s actually false, and is merely a cover for the U.S. ‘news’-media’s own pervasive deceit against the American public (including especially deceiving the voters). That news-report was based upon (but didn’t link to) their poll which was being reported on that same day, which headlined “Many dissatisfied with the government’s spending priorities”, and their poll showed that, in descending order of popularity, the following federal program-areas need bigger budgets than now exist, according to a majority of the polled voters: Education, Health Care, Social Security, Infrastructure, Assistance to the poor, Medicare, Border Security, Assistance for childcare, and Drug rehabilitation. The following programs, in ascending order of unpopularity to be expanded (so bigger demands to be cut) according to the voters, were: The environment, Scientific research, The military, Assistance to big cities, Space exploration, and Assistance to other countries (“foreign aid”).
The public have generally not been informed by their ‘news’-media (such as by the AP) that already over half of the budgets that the federal Government spends is going to the military. Only around 47% is going to everything else.
The U.S. federal Government spends about half of all of the money that is being spent worldwide on military, but much of those funds are being paid-out from other, supposedly ‘non’-military Departments, in order to hide this fact so that in the standard (such as SIPRI) calculations — all of which calculate ignoring this crucial fact) — only around 37% (instead of 50%) of the global military spending is by the U.S. Government.
And this — this deception of the American public — is the reason why politically in the United States, every year, there is political tension over whether the U.S. Government ought to default on some of its financial obligations: The public are grossly deceived regarding where that money is actually going.
The AP’s news-report which opened by saying, “In the federal budget standoff, the majority of U.S. adults are asking lawmakers to pull off the impossible” gave as examples: “Roughly 6 in 10 adults say the government is spending too little on education, health care, infrastructure and Social Security, as well as assistance to the poor and Medicare. … By comparison, a wide majority – 69% – say the U.S. is spending too much on assistance to other countries. But slashing foreign aid would have almost no impact on the overall size of the government, as it accounts for less than 1% of all federal spending, and major programs such as Social Security and Medicare are causing the government to grow in size over the next decade.”
It could also have pointed out, for example, that the U.S. Government donates annually to Israel in foreign aid, $3.8 billion, all of which is allocated to fund Israel’s purchases of U.S.-made weaponry by Israel’s military. Perhaps 99% of the U.S. public associate the phrase “foreign aid” to feeding the hungry and curing the sick abroad. But far more of it is spent to subsidize America’s weapons-manufacturers, and for USAID (etc.) to support coup-operations against Governments that America’s super-rich covet to add (via “regime-change”) to the Governmental empire (America’s “hegemony”) that collectively they control (in addition to controlling the U.S. Government itself).
It’s a charade to get U.S. taxpayers to increase the percentage of the U.S. federal budget that (in a vast number of different ways) goes to subsidizing America’s billionaires (the people who buy and install Congress and the President).
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Investigative historian Eric Zuesse’s new book, AMERICA’S EMPIRE OF EVIL: Hitler’s Posthumous Victory, and Why the Social Sciences Need to Change, is about how America took over the world after World War II in order to enslave it to U.S.-and-allied billionaires. Their cartels extract the world’s wealth by control of not only their ‘news’ media but the social ‘sciences’ — duping the public.
MORE ON THE TOPIC:
- U.S. OMB Says U.S. Military Spending This Year Is $1.448T, Next Year’s Request Is $1.510T
- The U.S. Empire Is Starting To Fall Apart
- U.S. Routinely Violates International Law, With Impunity — And Seeks To Replace U.N.
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