April 22, 2012

On April 17, 2012, the highly-respected Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) released its latest study of world military spending. World military spending reached a record $1,738 billion in 2011, an increase of $138 billion over the previous year.  The United States accounted for 41 percent of that, or $711 billion. Why are military expenditures continuing to increase, indeed, why aren’t they substantially decreasing, given the governmental austerity measures of recent years? Amid the economic crisis that began in late 2008 (and which continues to the present day), most governments have been cutting back their spending dramatically on education, libraries, healthcare, housing, parks, and other vital social services. There have been no corresponding cuts in military budgets. In fact, this past year, nations spent more money on the military than at any time in human history. In the good ol’ USofA, House Republicans have been trying to wriggle out of the agreement they made in August that will force deep cuts in military spending. Now we know how they propose to do it: They will take tens of billions out of programs for the poorest Americans, particularly food stamps, along with health care for the middle class. The House Agriculture Committee voted on Wednesday to cut $33 billion over the next decade out of food stamps. That would immediately end benefits for two million people, and reduce benefits for the remaining 44 million people who use the program. A family of four would find their benefits lowered by $57 a month beginning in September, according to an analysis by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. The committee trimmed job training for food-stamp recipients by 72 percent; 280,000 students would no longer be eligible for free meals. The budget deal reached last August — the one Republicans triggered with their disastrous debt-ceiling crisis — calls for a painful sequester of $600 billion to both military and domestic spending over a decade. The Republicans could have accepted the military cuts they had agreed to or they could have joined with Democrats in reducing the cuts by raising taxes on the rich. Instead, the 2013 budget, written by Representative Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, put all the cuts on the domestic side. Representative Mike Conaway, a Texas Republican, explained that the Constitution requires Congress to pay for defense but that food stamps and other domestic programs were lower priorities. Agriculture was one of six committees ordered to find cuts to protect the military budget. The Ways and Means Committee has to cut $53 billion, and its members have already begun taking most of that money out of health care reform, starting with subsidies for insurance exchanges. The Financial Services Committee is planning to save $35 billion by eliminating the F.D.I.C.’s ability to take over failing banks, and hobbling the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau with a $5.4 billion cut. The agriculture committee, told to find $33 billion in cuts, could have substantially reduced the farm subsidies that now amount to more than $15 billion a year. Instead, the entire amount is coming out of food stamps. Makes your heart swell with pride, doesn’t it.