Washington-. US President Joe Biden presented a fiscal year 2023 budget detached from national reality, with a historic increase in military spending despite the economic crisis and inflation.
The White House asked Congress for $813 billion to ensure the nation’s defenses, including $773 billion for the Pentagon.
“My administration places great emphasis on financial responsibility, security and the investments needed to build a better country,” the Democratic president said as he unveiled the proposal in a 277-page document this week.
“I am calling for one of the largest investments in history to ensure our military remains the best prepared and equipped in the world,” he added.
The plan calls for new investments in the nuclear arsenal, the construction of a new long-range stealth bomber and nuclear-powered submarines, among other sophisticated and deadly weapons.
In other words, nothing is more important to the US ruler than being prepared for war amid the conflict in Eastern Europe between Russia and Ukraine, a situation analysts say was encouraged by Washington and its allies in the Organization of the North Atlantic Treaty.
However, economists, pundits and the American people disagree that these should be the country’s priorities and believe such an initiative does not meet true national interests and concerns.
According to the Bloomberg publication, the plan is based on economic assumptions that Biden acknowledges as outdated, including forecasting that inflation will be reduced to a quarter of its current rate, the highest in four decades.
According to this medium’s journalist Katia Dmitrieva, the President made the proposal based on forecasts finalized in November 2021, as is customary in the White House budget process.
“Since then, however, the economic outlook has changed significantly, with inflation rising to a record 7.9 percent,” he warned.
He added that the forecasts before the start of the war in Eastern Europe were closed at the end of February and did not take into account the increase in food and fuel prices in the country that occurred as a result of the conflict.
The economic reality worries the American people, and recent polls show that inflation is at the top of citizens’ lists of concerns.
A Gallup poll found that three in five respondents are “very concerned” about the cost of living.
Added to this is the growing popular dissatisfaction with Biden’s management over his attempts to draw the United States into a direct confrontation with Russia and being part of the conflict in Ukraine.
It is unacceptable that the President is proposing record military spending after the end of our longest war in Afghanistan, leaders of the Congressional Progressive Caucus lamented in a joint letter.
There is only one other way: that the legislature ignores these options and creates its own budget, and then the document corresponds to the concerns of the majority.
(taken from orb)