{"id":19465,"date":"2021-02-02T20:26:48","date_gmt":"2021-02-02T20:26:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.radiofree.org\/?p=157581"},"modified":"2021-02-02T20:26:48","modified_gmt":"2021-02-02T20:26:48","slug":"warren-blasts-unconscionable-740-billion-pentagon-budget-while-millions-suffer-from-poverty-joblessness-and-covid-19","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2021\/02\/02\/warren-blasts-unconscionable-740-billion-pentagon-budget-while-millions-suffer-from-poverty-joblessness-and-covid-19\/","title":{"rendered":"Warren Blasts ‘Unconscionable’ $740 Billion Pentagon Budget While Millions Suffer From Poverty, Joblessness, and Covid-19"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

“We continue to overinvest in defense while underinvesting in public health and so much more.”<\/p>\n

“We can spend less on the military and obtain not only the same amount of security, but more.”
\u2014Stephen Wertheim, Historian<\/p>\n

That’s what Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said during Tuesday’s Senate Armed Services Committee confirmation hearing<\/a> for Kathleen Hicks, President Joe Biden’s nominee for deputy defense secretary.<\/p>\n

“The size of the defense budget… has long been a concern of mine,” said Warren, “but after the past year, watching more than 400,000 fellow Americans die, tens of millions unemployed due to Covid-19, millions more who are lined up at food banks, and even millions more who are on the threshold of losing their homes and being put out on the street, spending $740 billion dollars a year on this one piece of the federal budget is unconscionable.”<\/p>\n

“A budget is about priorities,” said Warren. When the senator asked if the U.S. can reduce defense spending “without sacrificing our security,” Hicks said no.<\/p>\n

Even though “I certainly understand” how the coronavirus crisis “calls into question what the priorities are across our government,” said Hicks, “I also… believe that we are a nation that can afford the defense that it needs to have.”<\/p>\n

“The focus on the top-line number can really obscure a more important conversation around what is it we want our military… to do,” Hicks said, sidestepping Warren’s point, which was that the national budget should reflect the issues that people in the U.S. want<\/a> their representatives to focus on, like implementing policies<\/a> to mitigate compounding public health, economic, and environmental emergencies.<\/p>\n

“We can spend less on the military and obtain not only the same amount of security, but more,” asserted<\/a> Stephen Wertheim, deputy director of research and policy at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft and research scholar at Columbia University.<\/p>\n

\n
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The first days of the Biden administration brought a deeply welcome spate of reversals of Trump policies.<\/p>\n

But on one huge front, the Biden administration has yet to signal any major breaks from Trump\u2019s legacy: the vast overreach of the Pentagon.https:\/\/t.co\/gP5vNmG4rT<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 National Priorities Project (@natpriorities) February 2, 2021<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

Medea Benjamin, co-founder of the peace group CodePink, pointed out that Warren was the only lawmaker at the hearing to juxtapose the nation’s bloated military budget with the surge in unmet social needs.<\/p>\n

\n
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Thank goodness for @SenWarren<\/a>, the only one at the Senate Armed Services Committee hearing to say that the $740 billion Pentagon budget is unconscionable in light of our healthcare and other critical needs.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Medea Benjamin (@medeabenjamin) February 2, 2021<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

As Common Dreams<\/em> reported<\/a> Monday, all 10 senators behind the GOP’s $618 billion coronavirus relief counterproposal recently approved $740 billion in military spending for fiscal year 2021, providing additional evidence that many lawmakers’ priorities<\/a> aren’t aligned with those<\/a> of the public<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n

This post was originally published on Radio Free<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cWe continue to overinvest in defense while underinvesting in public health and so much more.\u201d \u201cWe can spend less on the military and obtain not only the same\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19465"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19465"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19465\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19466,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19465\/revisions\/19466"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19465"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19465"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19465"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}