This article originally appeared at TomDispatch.com. To receive TomDispatch in your inbox three times a week, click here.
While Donald Trump and crew have been altering so much and changing our world in so many ways -- if you doubt that, wave a Mexican flag and say goodbye to democracy -- there's one place where they remain stuck fast in the past. Yes, once upon a time, when it came to what's still called the "defense" budget (though it should undoubtedly be called either the "offense" or "offensive" budget), there weren't all those high-tech producers of wildly futuristic weaponry like Peter Thiel, the co-founder of Palantir Technologies, aka "the AI arms dealer of the 21st century." You know, the fellow who invented" oops, sorry, first employed and then invested an estimated $15 million in promoting J.D. Vance to senator and then vice-president.
And yes, President Trump has recently made history after a fashion by sending in the Marines and calling up the California National Guard to put down protests in Los Angeles -- no matter that California Governor Gavin Newsom didn't want either of them; no matter that it changes American history (for the worse) and brings us ever closer to the end of democracy in this country; no matter that the president of the United States essentially called for the arrest of the governor of California, suggesting border "czar" Tom Holman could do so. ("I would do it if I were Tom. I think it's great.") No matter, no matter, none at all.
Yes, everything right now seems so eerily new that it's hard sometimes to imagine what's so eerily old and still goes on and on. And yet, today, TomDispatch regular William Hartung, most recently co-author of the upcoming book The Trillion Dollar War Machine: How Runaway Military Spending Drives America into Foreign Wars and Bankrupts Us at Home, explores just how the American taxpayer continues to feed the lions of the American military machine in a fashion that only grows ever more expensive as the years pass by. It's quite a (grim) tale of what even Donald Trump can't change and, as Hartung makes clear today, it only grows worse, year after Trumpian year. Tom
Feeding the Warfare State
We Lose, the Weapons Makers Win
The Senate is on the verge of passing the distinctly misnamed "big beautiful bill." It is, in fact, one of the ugliest pieces of legislation to come out of Congress in living memory. The version that passed the House recently would cut $1.7 trillion, mostly in domestic spending, while providing the top 5% of taxpayers with roughly $1.5 trillion in tax breaks.
Over the next few years, the same bill will add another $150 billion to a Pentagon budget already soaring towards a record $1 trillion. In short, as of now, in the battle between welfare and warfare, the militarists are carrying the day.
Pentagon Pork and the People It Harms
The bill, passed by the House of Representatives and at present under consideration in the Senate, would allocate tens of billions of dollars to pursue President Trump's cherished but hopeless Golden Dome project, which Laura Grego of the Union of Concerned Scientists has described as "a fantasy." She explained exactly why the Golden Dome, which would supposedly protect the United States against nuclear attack, is a pipe dream:
"Over the last 60 years, the United States has spent" Ã ? ï ? ? ï ? ?more than $350 billion on efforts to develop a defense against nuclear-armed ICBMs [intercontinental ballistic missiles]. This effort has been plagued by false starts and failures, and none have yet been demonstrated to be effective" Ã ? ï ? ? ï ? ?against a real-world threat" Missile defenses are not a useful or long-term strategy for keeping the U.S. safe from nuclear weapons."
The bill also includes billions more for shipbuilding, heavy new investments in artillery and ammunition, and funding for next-generation combat aircraft like the F-47.
Oh, and after all of those weapons programs get their staggering cut of that future Pentagon budget, somewhere way down at the bottom of that list is a line item for improving the quality of life for active-duty military personnel. But the share aimed at the well-being of soldiers, sailors, and airmen (and women) is less than 6% of the $150 billion that Congress is now poised to add to that department's already humongous budget. And that's true despite the way Pentagon budget hawks invariably claim that the enormous sums they routinely plan on shoveling into it -- and the overflowing coffers of the contractors it funds -- are "for the troops."
Much of the funding in the bill will flow into the districts of key members of Congress (to their considerable political benefit). For example, the Golden Dome project will send billions of dollars to companies based in Huntsville, Alabama, which calls itself "Rocket City" because of the dense network of outfits there working on both offensive missiles and missile defense systems. And that, of course, is music to the ears of Representative Mike Rogers (R-AL), the current chair of the House Armed Services Committee, who just happens to come from Alabama.
The shipbuilding funds will help prop up arms makers like HII Corporation (formerly Huntington Ingalls), which runs a shipyard in Pascagoula, Mississippi, the home state of Senate Armed Services Committee chair Roger Wicker (R-Miss). The funds will also find their way to shipyards in Maine, Connecticut, and Virginia.
Those funds will benefit the co-chairs of the House Shipbuilding Caucus, Representative Joe Courtney (D-CT) and Representative Rob Wittman (R-VA). Connecticut hosts General Dynamics' Electric Boat plant, which makes submarines that carry ballistic missiles, while Virginia is home to HII Corporation's Newport News Shipbuilding facility, which makes both aircraft carriers and attack submarines.
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