{"id":298196,"date":"2017-03-09T00:19:07","date_gmt":"2017-03-08T23:19:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/getting-that-secure-feeling-yet\/"},"modified":"2017-03-09T00:19:07","modified_gmt":"2017-03-08T23:19:07","slug":"getting-that-secure-feeling-yet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/getting-that-secure-feeling-yet\/","title":{"rendered":"Getting That Secure Feeling Yet?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Millions of Americans are feeling uneasy, disgruntled, and insecure. That message sounded loud and clear throughout our turbulent election year.<\/p>\n

The Trump administration’s latest budget proposal isn’t likely to change that.<\/p>\n

It comes down to this: lots more money \u2014 $54 billion, in fact \u2014 for the military. That’s “one of the largest increases in defense spending in American history,” as the president put it in his recent speech to Congress. And less money for pretty much everything else.<\/p>\n

Giving the military more money seems like a no-brainer way to increase security. But apply a little brain power and you quickly see what\u2019s wrong with this idea.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s true, as Trump says, that our troops are having trouble “winning wars” like they used to. But the Pentagon that sent them into war already has more money than it did during the Bush or<\/em> the Reagan build-up years. And more money than the next seven countries put together.<\/p>\n

Besides, what will the military do with all that extra money?<\/p>\n

\"Pentagon<\/p>\n

Truthout.org\/Flickr<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

It’s hard to say, because the Defense Department\u2019s accounting systems are so poor (read: designed to hide waste) that it\u2019s the only federal agency that still can\u2019t pass an audit. Its own Defense Business Board identified $125 billion<\/a> in Pentagon waste without breaking a sweat. (The Pentagon buried the report, though.)<\/p>\n

I\u2019m suspicious of the $54 billion figure on other grounds, too. It happens to be 10 percent of the current budget.<\/p>\n

Did they arrive at this number based upon careful consideration of threats and necessary tools to respond to them? Or did they come up with a nice big, round number to throw at the Pentagon and let them figure out how to spend it?<\/p>\n

I think it\u2019s the latter, and that doesn\u2019t make me feel safer.<\/p>\n

Now let\u2019s look at where they want to cut. Start with the State Department, whose total<\/em> budget ($29 billion) is dwarfed by the extra<\/em> money they want to give to the Pentagon.<\/p>\n

More than 100 retired generals recently put out a statement saying that cutting the diplomacy budget is a bad idea that threatens out security. After all, we\u2019re more likely to go to war if we\u2019re depriving ourselves of the tools to avoid it.<\/p>\n

As General Jim Mattis put it<\/a> back in 2013, “If you don\u2019t fund the State Department fully, then I need to buy more ammunition.” Mattis now heads the Pentagon.<\/p>\n

Further, the military itself says climate change is an “urgent and growing” threat to our security. The Trump budget would slash funding for the lead agency, the Environmental Protection Agency, in charge of protecting us from that threat.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also hard to feel secure if you think the air you\u2019re breathing and the water you\u2019re drinking might be making you sick. The same day Trump was telling Congress he\u2019d protect our air and water, he was axing an Obama administration clean water rule.<\/p>\n

Another common source of anxiety and anger: feeling you\u2019ve been ripped off by some bank or retailer and there\u2019s nothing you can do about it. Let\u2019s watch those feelings multiply if the administration succeeds in zeroing out the budget for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.<\/p>\n

And the list goes on: Imagine the rise in anxiety caused by cuts to the Labor Department\u2019s efforts to protect workers.<\/p>\n

This Insecurity Budget is far from a done deal \u2014 the fight over it is likely to go on all year. We\u2019ll need to stand up for a budget that protects our real security priorities every step of the way.<\/p>\n

The National Priorities Project (www.nationalpriorities.org<\/a>) will be one source of help. They\u2019ll be following the fight, putting forth alternatives, and giving us tools to make our voices heard.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

This piece was reprinted from Other Words<\/a> by RINF Alternative News<\/a> with permission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Millions of Americans are feeling uneasy, disgruntled, and insecure. That message sounded loud and clear throughout our turbulent election year. The Trump administration’s latest budget proposal isn’t likely to change that. It comes down to this: lots more money \u2014 $54 billion, in fact \u2014 for the military. That’s “one of the largest increases in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2523,"featured_media":298197,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-298196","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298196","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2523"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=298196"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298196\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/298197"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=298196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=298196"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=298196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}