From The Black Agenda Report
By Margaret Kimberley

In the past two weeks the Democratic majorities in the Senate and House worked hand in hand with Republicans to dole out $700 billion to the financial services industry that has brought the United States and the world to ruin. The bailout of Wall Street has been on the tip of every tongue, the subject of numerous editorials and the issue by which the two major party presidential candidates are being judged. Almost nothing has been said about the bill signed by President Bush which authorizes $611 billion in military spending.

Without debate, or mention in the corporate media, congress passed a military spending authorization that is nearly as large as the much talked about financial services bail out bill. The defense bill is every bit as wasteful and just as much a harbinger of doom as the much discussed Wall Street bailout, but has elicited hardly any debate, even from progressives. The damage that military spending does both to the federal budget and to the overall economy is just as bad as that of the “cash for trash” scheme cooked up by Treasury Secretary Paulson.

The American military budget is larger than the military budgets of the rest of the world combined. That spending does nothing to improve this nation’s economy and in fact puts it firmly on the road to bankruptcy.

There is rarely any debate in either party regarding the need for additional bases overseas (there are currently 700), new weapons systems or plans for future wars. The public who rose up in righteous anger over efforts to privatize Social Security or to reward Paulson and friends say nothing about their tax dollars going down a black hole of spending for helicopters, aircraft carriers and new weapons systems that make them poorer and don’t keep them any safer.

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