Senate passes $738B defense bill, including Space Force
The Senate on Tuesday passed a $738 billion defense bill in a compromise after months of negotiations.
The Senate on Tuesday passed a $738 billion defense bill in a compromise after months of negotiations.
The bill was passed on a bipartisan basis
President Donald Trump has said he would sign the fiscal 2020 National Defense Authorization Act, passed by an 86-8 vote, after Senate and House Armed Services leaders took nearly three months to strike the deal.
The bill authorizes Pentagon spending and lays out policy guidelines.
Spending includes $635 billion for the base Pentagon budget, $23.1 billion for Energy Department nuclear weapons programs, $71.5 billion for war operations and $5.3 billion in emergency disaster recovery for military bases.
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The bill also approves a 3.1 percent troop pay raise, which is the largest in a decade.
Defense purchases were also boosted in the bill, which authorized over $9 billion to buy 90 Lockheed Martin F-35 fighters, 12 more than the Pentagon requested. The purchase of eight upgraded F-15EX fighters that Boeing built were also approved. And the measure authorized $23 billion to build 12 Navy ships, including three Arleigh Burke-class destroyers, two Virginia-class attack submarines, a new frigate and two amphibious ships.
The bill would establish a Space Force that Trump has hailed in a compromise with Democrats to grant federal employees 12 weeks of paid parental leave. Under the agreement, the Space Force would be housed under the Air Force Department and be led by a chief of space operations who would become a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, but report to the Air Force secretary.
The legislation also includes a provision that would phase out an unpopular offset in military survivor benefits, known as the "widow's tax," over three years.
Trump's signature would mark the 59th consecutive year defense policy legislation has been signed into law, but Republican and Democratic leaders said this year has been one of the most contentious negotiations.
"This year, the process of getting to a final conference report was certainly tougher than most years," Senate Armed Services Chairman Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., said. "There were some moments we weren't sure we were going to be able to get to one ... It took a few months of hard-fought negotiations, but the end result was getting a bill that we could be proud of."
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Some people across both parties complained there was too much compromise.
Among them, some progressive lawmakers complained that the bill omitted including limits on siphoning military money for the border wall, which was put into a separate appropriations process, transgender troops protections and limits on Trump's authority to wage war on Iran and end U.S. involvement in Yemen's civil war.
"The time is long overdue for us to take a hard look at military spending, including the 'war on terror,' and whether it makes sense to spend trillion more on endless wars, wars that often cause more problems than they solve," Sen. Bernie Sanders, D-Vt., a Democratic presidential candidate, who didn't vote Tuesday, wrote in a Washington Post editorial Monday.
Meanwhile, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky. has criticized granting federal employees 12 weeks of paid parental leave, referring to it as part of "bad compromises" that had "nothing to do with the national defense."
"The dirty little secret in Washington is that there's actually too much compromise," Paul said. "We're going to have paid leave for everybody, but we're going to borrow the money from China."
Still, Democratic Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., said that the legislation was a good deal.
"It is the art of compromise," Reed said.
This was in February before today's budget increase
THIS WAS THE REVISED BUDGET PRIOR TO TODAY'S INCREASE
THE US MILITARY BUDGET UNDER TRUMP HAS ALREADY
REACHED THIS BUDGET LEVEL DECEMBER 2019
THIS WOULD FUND ALL THE DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATES PLANS
THIS IS THE FIFTH BUDGET INCREASE SINCE TRUMP TOOK POWER
THIS IS AMERICA MILITARY SPENDING COMPARED TO THE REST OF THE WORLD
The explanation
developed primarily by Michael Kidron and known as the theory of the permanent
arms economy had two aspects. First, it recognised the fact that the system had
stabilised itself and set out to find out why. ... It predicted the decline of
the arms economy and the return of the boom-slump cycle.
Michael Kidron:
Permanent Arms Economy (1967)
Michael Kidron
A Permanent Arms Economy
(Spring 1967)
First printed in International Socialism (1st series),
No.28, Spring 1967, pp.8-12.
Michael Kidron
and the Permanent Arms Economy https://livesrunning.wordpress.com/2013/06/10/michael-kidron-and-the-permanent-arms-economy/
Reassessing the
Permanent Arms Economy
PERMANENT WAR ECONOMY
ED SARD
The concept of permanent war economy originated in 1944
with an article by Ed Sard (alias Frank Demby, Walter S. Oakes and T.N.
Vance), a Third Camp Socialist, who predicted a post-war arms race.
Walter J. Oakes
Toward a Permanent War Economy?
(February 1944)
Tony Cliff
Perspectives of the Permanent War Economy
(May 1957)
SEYMOUR MELMAN
The Permanent War Economy
- The New York Times
Jan 26, 1975 - Seymour Melman's book, The Permanent War
Economy. American Capitalism in Decline, discusses tacit public belief that
profligate mil ...
War Inc., by Seymour
Melman
In War Inc. Seymour Melman sought to introduce a new
generation of readers to his lifelong critique of the operation of the war
economy in the United States, and the ongoing process of deindustrialization
that has destroyed much of America’s once formidable manufacturing industries.
Aimed at a wide variety of readers, the book draws on and synthesizes Professor
Melman’s prior research and books, especially Pentagon Capitalism, The
Permanent War Economy, and Our Depleted
Society. It also extends some of the arguments and research of his major 2001
study, After Capitalism: From Managerialism to Workplace Democracy.
July 14, 2003
In the Grip of a
Permanent War Economy
By Seymour Melman*
Now, at the start of the twenty-first century, every
major aspect of American life is being shaped by our Permanent War Economy. The
top managers of the war economy, from Kennedy on, have ensured that working for
The Pentagon is far more lucrative than producing and designing for civilian
markets. By 2003 half of every federal tax dollar is spent by The Pentagon.
More Power to the
Workers: Seymour Melman on Extraction by the Military, Managers, and Finance
Posted on January 5, 2018 by Yves Smith
Limits of Military
Power: Economic and Other
JSTOR
International Security
JOURNAL ARTICLE
Limits of Military Power: Economic and Other
Seymour Melman
International Security
Vol. 11, No. 1 (Summer, 1986), pp. 72-87
Published by: The MIT Press
DOI: 10.2307/2538876
Page Count: 16
America's New Economic
Problem
Seymour Melman at Cape
Cod, July
SEYMOUR MELMAN AND THE NEW AMERICAN
REVOLUTION
By Johnathan Feldman,
counterpunch.org
December 31, 2017 |
A Reconstructionist Alternative To A
Society Spiraling Into The Abyss.
American Capitalism in Decline
On December 30, 1917 Seymour
Melman was born in New York City. The
100th anniversary of his birth helps bring his intellectual legacy into
focus. Melman was the most significant
reconstructionist thinker of the 20th Century, championing alternatives to
militarism, capitalism, and social decay by advancing a systematic
counter-planning program for disarmament and economic democracy. His legacy remains of critical importance
because today the United States is currently a society in which the economic,
political and cultural systems are spiraling into an abyss. Economic and social reconstruction is the idea
that planned alternatives to the incumbent mechanisms for organizing economic,
political and cultural power exist in alternative institutional designs and
matching systems to extend these designs.
MIC
MILITARY-INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX
The military-industrial complex is one
of a series of ideas
that aim to critique the manner in
which science, technology, and society have interacted with one another since World War II. The term itself
was popularized by U.S. president and World War II
general Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890–1969) in a farewell
address to the Nation on January 17, 1961, in which
he warned the American people against ‘‘the
acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought by [such a] complex’’ and the corresponding
threat it posed to democracy. Although defined as ‘‘the
conjunction of an immense military establishment and a
large arms industry,’’ its influence extends beyond industry and the military
(Eisenhower). Often called the military-industrial congressional complex, for
instance, it comprises the iron triangle of Congress, the Pentagon,
and defense industries. Additionally because the military and industry both support and depend upon academic
research,
another iron triangle has been dubbed
the military-industrial-university complex (Hughes 2004).
THE CHANGING MILITARY INDUSTRIAL
COMPLEX
The first reference to a military industrial complex
(MIC) was made by US President Eisenhower in 1961. He then referred to
something historically specific: the build-up of a large permanent military
establishment and a permanent arms industry, which raised his concerns for the
unwarranted influence of these societal forces. Subsequently the meaning of the
MIC evolved to refer to the vested interests within the state and industry in
expanding the military sector and in increasing military spending, with
external threats providing the justification. During the Cold War, when the
defence was strongly focused on deterrence, this produced a set of specific
state-industry relationships that in turn generated a beneficial environment
for the development and strengthening of the MIC. With the end of the Cold War,
the conditions for a strong MIC were less favourable, at least initially, with
changes in the international security environment, cuts in military spending
and arms production, and ensuing privatisation, commercialisation, and
internationalisation of military activities as well as of arms production. This
paper discusses how the MIC has been affected by these changes and the degree
to which there has been continuity of old power structures and a continuing
MIC.
Moving from a War
Economy to a Peace Economy http://disq.us/t/8i4kac
The Social and Economic
Consequences of US Militarism
Les conséquences
sociales et économiques du militarisme étatsunien
Pierre Guerlain
Abstracts
EnglishFrançais
This article reviews the forms of US militarism as they
have evolved since Eisenhower’s famous 1961 speech and presents the deleterious
effects military spending has on the social and economic well-being of the
United States. In particular it shows that military Keynesianism is a blind
alley which does not benefit the larger economy. This article will show that
militarism impacts the minds of citizens and the contents of political debates
and adversely affects the image of the US abroad. It can also be argued that it
fosters economic and political decline for the only superpower which is today
in competition with emerging rivals.
The Political Economy of
U.S. Military Spending | SpringerLink
by I Hossein-zadeh - 2006 - Related articles
Political Economy Foreign Policy Public Capital Bush
Administration Military Expenditure ... Chalmers Johnson, The Sorrows of Empire
(New York: Metropolitan Books, .... Seymour Melman, “They Are All Implicated:
In the Grip of Permanent War .... ISBN 978-1-4039-8342-8; eBook Packages
Palgrave Political & Intern.
War: The Wrong Jobs
Program
Can we run our economy
on military spending?
By Mark Engler, November 15, 2011.
THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF DEFENCE
‘Of the Expence of
Defence’: What Has Changed Since Adam Smith?
by Jurgen Brauer*© Jurgen Brauer
*Hull College of Business, Augusta University, Augusta,
USA; EBA Program, Faculty of Economics, Chulalongkorn
University, Bangkok, Thailand; Co-editor, The Economics
of Peace and Security Journal
Email: brauer.jurgen@gmail.com
Draft: 13 March 2017
Abstract: This essay selectively reviews the history of
economic thought on war and peace, starting with Adam Smith. Today, Smith’s
trickle of thoughts has become a broad marshland. In this marshland, however,
discrete currents are apparent—some stronger, some weaker—which this essay
identifies, in rough chronological order, as war, defense, conflict, military,
security, and peace economics. As these terms often are used interchangeably,
one purpose of the essay is to more clearly delineate these intellectual
currents and differentiate them from each other. By building canals in the
marshlands as it were, the aim is to help all flows of contributions become
stronger.
RIGHT WING LIBERTARIAN THEORY OF THE
PERMANENT WAR ECONOMY
The Origins of the
Permanent War Economy: The Independent Review: The Independent Institute http://disq.us/t/29u1xff [PDF]
Led astray by Marxist and Keynesian dogma, the literature
on the origins of the permanent war economy has overlooked a leading cause of
the elevated levels of U.S. military spending since the end of World War II:
the economic rents created by the federal government’s monopoly on national
defense, and the pursuit of those rents by the labor, industry, and military
lobbies. Although the permanent war economy benefits powerful special interest
groups, it generates a significant negative externality by diverting resources
from other, private uses.
The Overlooked Costs of
the Permanent War Economy:
A Market Process
Approach
Thomas K. Duncan† Christopher J. Coyne‡
Abstract:
How does the permanent war economy interact, and subsume,
the private, non-military
economy? Can the two remain at a distance while sharing
resource pools? This paper argues that they cannot. Once the U.S. embarked upon
the path of permanent war, starting with World War II, the result was a
permanent war economy. The permanent war economy continuously draws resources
into the military sector at the expense of the private economy, even in times
of peace.
We explore the overlooked costs of this process. The permanent
war economy does not just
transfer resources from the private economy, but also
distorts and undermines the market process which is ultimately responsible for
improvements in standards of living.
The Neglected Costs of
the Warfare State: An Austrian Tribute to Seymour Melman
Lobotomizing the Defense
Brain
GMU Working Paper in Economics No. 14-34
45 Pages Posted: 26 Aug 2014 Last revised: 1 Mar 2015
Christopher J. Coyne
George Mason University - Department of Economics
Date Written: August 24, 2014
Abstract
Economists often model national defense as a pure public
good optimally provided by a benevolent and omnipotent "defense
brain" to maximize social welfare. I critically consider five assumptions
associated with this view: (1) that defense and security is a pure public good
that must be provided by a national government, (2) that state-provided defense
is always a "good" and never a "bad", (3) that the state
can provide defense in the optimal quantity and quality, (4) that state
expenditures on defense are neutral with respect to private economic activity,
and (5) that state-provided defense activities are neutral with respect to
domestic political institutions. I discuss an alternative framework — the
"individualistic view"— for analyzing defense provision and suggest
it is superior for understanding reality.
