Military spending leads to exploding Deficit

Published in the Fort Collins Coloradoan on August 17, 2010

The Progressive Democrats of America and Strength through Peace recently received a response from Representative Betsy Markey after six months of holding vigils at Markey’s downtown office. In the letter Markey states that “In FY2011, defense spending and security spending is expected to be nearly $750 billion or 20% of the total budget.”

 The truth is that military spending is a much greater contributor to our deficit than Rep. Markey would have us believe. According to an analysis of detailed tables in the Analytical Perspectives book of the Federal Budget, Fiscal Year 2011, there is more than $876 billion budgeted for the Department of Defense through homeland security, military aid, veterans’ benefits and military-related interest on the national debt. Moreover, the “black budget” military spending is estimated at nearly $80 billion per year. See www.warresisters.org and http://nationalpriorities.org/.

            And while the so called “defense” budget has been growing for decades (remember Eisenhower’s warning about the growing influence of the military industrial complex came in 1960), since 9/11 the numbers have jumped significantly. In fact, 65% of the increase in discretionary federal spending has gone to military purposes in the years since 2001. And the money is not just going to pay for the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. Miscellaneous military spending makes up more than a third of the increase.

 Rep. Markey’s letter creates an impression that she is alone in her quest to solve the country’s deficit woes. We would remind her that there is a “Sustainable Defense Task Force” headed up by Rep. Barney Frank to identify areas of the military budget that could be cut without compromising U.S. vital interests. The task force found nearly $1 trillion in possible savings over 10 years.

Markey recently voted for the supplemental bill approving $37 billion for continuing the occupation of Afghanistan. The vote for this bill was accelerated to move the bill more quickly through the House of Representatives. It appears as though members of Congress did not want a prolonged debate on the bill in light of the recent massive leak of documents to the media of classified reports of the day to day operations in Afghanistan.

 These reports indicate that Americans are not hearing the whole story behind the conflict. The Washington Post reported that July was the deadliest month of the 9-year occupation (Joshua Partlow July 31^st). Clearly, things are not going well and a growing number of Americans are questioning whether we are accomplishing anything by being there. Do members of Congress think that voters are not capable of reaching rational conclusions about U.S. foreign policy in Afghanistan? This situation brings to mind the scene in the movie A Few Good Men, when Colonel Jessep under cross examination emphatically declares, "You can't handle the truth!"

 Voters in Colorado’s 4^th Congressional district can hold Rep. Markey accountable -and let her know that we can handle the truth. Rational thinking can prevail and prioritize funding for jobs, education and rebuilding aging infrastructure not endless, untenable occupations of countries in the Middle East. Please join The Progressive Democrats of America (www.pdamerica.org) and Strength through Peace (http://cjpe.org/stp/index.html) for our next monthly vigil on August 18^th at Representative Betsy Markey’s downtown Fort Collins office at the Opera Galleria on College from 12 to1pm.