On Friday President trump signed the federal budget for the year and to almost no ones surprise it is a terrible deal that will give unconscionable amounts of money to the military-industrial complex while snubbing every other program that would help the average american.
In 2018 defense spending will be increased by 85 billion and in 2019 it will increase another 80 billion, while infrastructure gets only 20 billion. The United States already spends more on the military than any other nation in the world and its not even close, we spend more than the 9 next highest spending nations COMBINED! and most of those nations are our fucking allies also 54% of our discretionary spending already goes to the military. Meanwhile our infrastructure which gets a grade of D+ from the American Society of Civil Engineers which many estimates show that it would take 3-5 trillion to fix got only a 20 billion dollar increase. That may be enough to fix some fucking pot-holes but it is nowhere near what it needs to be to have an impact on fixing our crumbling infrastructure. Also the spending bill offers very little in the way of helping veterans. In a nation with 35,000 homeless veterans, lack of mental healthcare for them, and no sufficient job training programs a 2 billion dollar increase to address the VA backlog seems like a fucking slap to the face to the men and women who served this country. How about instead of spending the 85 billion on buying weapons we don't need and using them to slaughter people overseas we spend it on making sure there is not a single homeless veteran and we give them job training and mental healthcare which many of them desperately need.
Now who is to blame for this disastrous spending bill? The easy answer would be the Republicans and you would be partly correct if you said that they do after all have a majority in both houses and the presidency, but I believe the true culprits are the goddamn Corporate Democrats. The Democrats had the numbers in the senate to force a shutdown so they could negotiate a deal where we don't give gargantuan amounts to the military while snubbing every other program that would benefit the average american. The Democrats also could have forced a vote on the Differed Action on Childhood Arrivals (DACA) which over 80% of Americans support and a vote on a congressional review on the FCC's decision to repeal net neutrality which 80% of Americans also support. Instead the Democrats collapsed like wet paper and gave the GOP everything they wanted and then some as the amount for the the military was even more than Trump asked for. And the Democrats gave the Republicans their votes on a promise from Mitch McConnell that there will be a vote on DACA not even an assurance it will pass. In the house Nancy Pelosi gave an 8 hour speech against the spending bill, but in a meeting with Democrats she told them that their will be no repercussions if they deiced to vote for the spending bill. In total 73 house Democrats voted for the spending bill. Why would Nancy Pelosi give a 8 hour speech on why the spending bill sucks and then not try to "whip" the other Democrats in line against the bill? I'll tell you why because Nancy Pelosi and other Corporate Democrats revive donations from the same defense contractors that support the Republicans and the same giant corporations that would not benefit from a shutdown. Everyone keeps saying the Democrats "caved" and say no they did not cave they did exactly what their corporate overlords told them to do, which is act as if you are fighting against the spending bill and really you will just give the Republicans everything they want. There is no opposition party in America there is only two wings of the fucking business party, one side to push the bullshit and one side to accept the bullshit. This is why this midterm you should not vote for a single corporate democrat and instead vote for real progressive candidates or third party the only way we can fix the system is by getting real opposition to big business and the Military-industrial complex in power.