Some Senators have stealthily stuffed $1 billion for nuclear weapons into the recovery bill. The only thing this will stimulate is an arms race. It must go.
The Senate bill now contains language authorizing $1 billion "for weapons activities" at the sprawling nuclear weapons complex of laboratories and factories run by the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), including new construction, new projects and new computers. The House bill does not contain this funding, for good reason.
Military spending is notoriously poor at stimulating the economy. Studies show that investing in mass transit, education or state and local government projects generate far more economic activity than money spent on weapons. There are, in addition, three other major problems with using this emergency legislation for non-urgent and unnecessary nuclear weapons purposes.
First, this is a stealth increase in the nuclear weapons budget. The government currently spends at least $52 billion each year on nuclear weapons and related programs, according to a new study by the Carnegie Endowment. This is an unconscionable amount in any year, but particularly outrageous during this profound economic crisis. Of this amount, the NNSA got $9.3 billion last year. The Senate would give the agency a $1 billion bonus--free money above and beyond its normal budget. It is an 11 percent increase for weapons programs at a time when hospitals, schools and state governments are forced to slash their budgets and lay off workers.
The Alliance for Nuclear Accountability provides a complete NNSA budget breakdown on their website. They are mounting a public campaign against this give-away.
Second, this weapons increase comes without any presidential plan for the size, composition, or mission for the 5,200 nuclear weapons currently in our stockpile. We have enough nuclear weapons to destroy the world--or any nation therein--many times over. But the Bush Administration planned to expand nuclear weapon production, plans that could cost $200 billion over the next two decades, according to Bill Hartung at the New America Foundation. Giving a nuclear bonus to the weapons complex now is an attempt to force start this expansion, box in President Obama, and create facts on the ground that he will find more difficult to reverse.
Finally, this is a nuclear earmark manipulated in Senate backrooms. There is not a record of who put these funds into the bill, nor any justification for why this amount and why now. The culprit, however, is suspected to be a senator who has no intention of voting for the bill. This is not transparency; this is hypocrisy. No member of Congress should be allowed to vigorously oppose the recovery bill with one hand and stuff nuclear pork into it with the other.
This dwarfs our entire foreign aid expenditures. 2007 US Foreign Aid was $21.75 billion. And $9.4 billion of that was in Iraq and Afghanistan, so it hard to separate those from our war budget.
Which do you wager has more impact on the security of our future?
Sooooo, our GOP moderates in the Senate, dictating what is acceptable to them or not, have decided to cut education funds from the bill in lieu of funding for more nuclear weapons.
And where are the 'liberal' media? Right. In their pocket, as usual.
Niiicce. gotta love 'em.
When the Senate's changes to the bill were- from all other accounts I've heard- aimed at reducing spending and adding tax cuts, why is it that weapons facilities were given MORE money for construction and computers while schools lost money for the same things? And if the senator who added this spending is one of the same senators arguing for less spending, and voting against the stimulus package after all... then this is criminal legislation. We spend more money on our military than the rest of the world combined. There is NO excuse for that, especially when our education, health care, and infrastructure are failing us. What's the value of being able to destroy all life on earth as we know it?
Thanks for this brilliant op-ed, Joe. Peace activism can't be put on hold because the economy sucks. The arguments return to what our priorities are as a nation, and what role we want our government to play locally, nationally, and internationally.
Why is this a sidebar article? No one has mention this 'Pork BS' by the GOP. We are trying to go in a different direction with our Foreign Policy but these people are still living in the Cold War era. I am very upset at Huffington for not making this the headline. Please put this out on Twitter right now. The truth needs to be heard by all Americans.
This may be used for the Virtual Stockpile.
Supercomputers, in other words.
If the cleanup funds are included in this total, that $500 million will go directly to jobs - and help stop high level waste seepage currently going into the Columbia River water basin.
After the US dropped the atomic bomb on Nagasaki and Hiroshima the world said never again. The only sign of human life in some areas was nothing more than a shadow left on the side of buildings. Human beings literally evaporated. Others who were still alive had skin hanging off their bodies. The water had been contaminated. There was no relief. It was the most horrifying incident in history.
What possible reason could justify the US building more nuclear weapons. Are we planning on using them again? If not why in the hell are we building more?
Billions - trillions of dollars every year are allocated to kill and destroy. The US spends more on military and weapons than all the other countries combined. Think how much different the world might be if all that money was used to better the human condition worldwide. Perhaps one day differences will be overcome without war -- that is if we don't destroy ourselves beforehand.
It's clear the House is far more progressive, far more indicative of the American people and how we think than this elitist club of Senators that do nothing for us except take high salaries with long, six year terms.
The Senate is outdated and should be done away with. Let Americans decide through their vote whom they want to lead our country and how we want our country to be led and that's what the House does.
resolution to rename their legislative body
..."THE HOUSE OF LORDS".
On the other hand, and remaining on topic:
Weapons industrialists are quite clever in getting parts manufactured in enough congressional districts so that the respective representatives fight tooth and nail to keep the blood flowing. Hence, you won't see Congress sqeak about it much; save for the occasional "not viable" variety.
It seems this administration still needs another Joe.
Thank you for bringing this to light!