Newsom can not tell you where $24 billion for homeless went. The Feds have no idea where trillions in COVID money went. So it is no surprise Biden can not tell where Defense money went.
“Then there is the rest of what the military needs to do its job. The Heritage Foundation says that most of the planes, tanks and warships are 30-40 years old. The average age of our fighter planes is 30 years, which happens to be older than our fighter pilots. The average refueling plane is even older – on average 60 years.
Forty years ago, the U.S. Navy had about 600 ships. We are now down to 292 and those are being overused to make up for the reduction. I saw a bipartisan Congressional report stating that we don’t even have adequate capacity in the country to build replacement ships or trained personnel to build them. We are spending all this money every year and we don’t have a regular program to replace and/or enhance our essential military hardware. Where is the money going? You can’t blame the military-industrial complex for ripping us off when they are not even being handed funds regularly for planes and ships.”
We might need to ask Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan for help with new equipment to protect us.
Where Does All That Defense Money Go?
Posted by Bruce Bialosky, Flashreport, 7/21/24 https://www.flashreport.org/blog/2024/07/21/where-does-all-that-defense-money-go/
We just had a big NATO conference in our country. NATO has been a powerful force for peace in the world. As readers of this column might surmise, I am a big supporter of our military. Support for the military is one of the rare things our federal government is constitutionally supposed to be doing. If I see a member of the military in a restaurant, the meal is on me. Yet increasingly I am baffled by the simple question: Where is all that money going?
Recently I received a news alert that the House Armed Services Committee had passed an $884 billion defense bill for next year’s budget. There is a lot of good news here. First of all, the House is properly doing its job of passing funding bills (there are supposed to be twelve) in a timely manner so we don’t have these last-minute budget fights. It includes a raise for our military personnel, who are significantly underpaid. It also includes increased funding for military housing. This is a 7.2% increase over the 2024 budget of $825 billion.
But recent information caused even someone like me to question where all this money is going. We will ignore the supercilious Leftist arguments that “greedy corporations” are taking advantage of our military leaders. Let’s focus on two aspects.
With the long fight over funding bills for Ukraine and Israel came a couple of intriguing arguments. First, we should fund these bills because the money was actually going to companies in America to manufacture the munitions. Some developed maps show how many states would be infused with the funds from the bill to produce the munitions.
Their other arguments were that our munition supplies had been so severely depleted we were ill equipped to fight a war ourselves, let alone a two-front war which we should be capable of doing at any time. We have been shipping Ukraine many armaments and the related munitions, but how we could possibly be in such a state when we are spending $825 billion?
It is said “an army marches on its stomach,” but it certainly needs bullets and artillery shells. How could just shipping Ukraine its allotment and maybe some to Israel deplete our own needs? Why is that not getting replenished from the annual budget?
Then there is the rest of what the military needs to do its job. The Heritage Foundation says that most of the planes, tanks and warships are 30-40 years old. The average age of our fighter planes is 30 years, which happens to be older than our fighter pilots. The average refueling plane is even older – on average 60 years.
Forty years ago, the U.S. Navy had about 600 ships. We are now down to 292 and those are being overused to make up for the reduction. I saw a bipartisan Congressional report stating that we don’t even have adequate capacity in the country to build replacement ships or trained personnel to build them. We are spending all this money every year and we don’t have a regular program to replace and/or enhance our essential military hardware. Where is the money going? You can’t blame the military-industrial complex for ripping us off when they are not even being handed funds regularly for planes and ships.
We certainly don’t want to prematurely replace our equipment if it is functioning correctly. On the other hand, can you imagine if FedEx did not replace a certain portion of its truck fleet on an annual basis? They would be spending more on maintenance than they would be on hauling their packages.
This is not the first time in recent history the military has left its hardware depleted, dated and inadequate. During the 1930’s we let our military become seriously dated and inadequate. We were not spending over $800 billion a year then even in constant dollars. The total U.S. budget in 1936 was $8 billion which would be roughly $150 billion in today’s dollars.
You might think the military budget includes taking care of our veterans, but the Department of Veterans’ Affairs is separately funded. The money is not going there. With the number of recruits down, the monies spent on personnel is much lower than it should be. That means even more money should be spent on personnel than the current allotment on tanks and guns.
It mystifies me that we can’t do the basic “blocking and tackling” of running our military with all the money they are getting. A regular replacement program should be in place. We should never be short of munitions. Our fleets, planes and ships need to be replaced and augmented. The way matters are going, we will need to turn to international arms merchants to supply us with the guns and munitions we need.
Where have all the bullets gone; long time passing.
A fun fact about NATO as our current President rails against our former President saying he wants to destroy NATO or withdraw from NATO. At the beginning of this year the Secretary General of NATO was on CNN and stated about Trump, “Well, I worked with him for four years and I listened carefully because the main criticism has been about NATO allies spending too little on NATO, and the message has been taken across the alliance in Europe and Canada. Over the last years, NATO allies have significantly increased defense spending. More and more allies meet the NATO guideline on spending 2% of GDP on defense. … In total, they have added 450 billion extra for defense. The message from the United States that the European allies have to step up has been understood, and they are now really moving in the right direction, and that strengthens also the trans-Atlantic bond within the alliance.” Just the facts.
