Why Is It So Hard To Trim The Pentagon's Budget

F-35 Production Line

William Hartung, Mother Jones/Tom Dispatch: Why Can't We Rein In This Ridiculous Military Spending?

William Hartung on fear, greed, and the cash cow Congress won't touch.

Through good times and bad, regardless of what's actually happening in the world, one thing is certain: In the long run, the Pentagon budget won't go down.

It's not that the budget has never been reduced. At pivotal moments, like the end of World War II as well as the war's end in Korea and Vietnam, there were indeed temporary downturns, as there was after the Cold War. More recently, the Budget Control Act of 2011 threw a monkey wrench into the Pentagon's plans for funding that would go ever onward and upward by putting a cap on the money Congress could pony up for it. The remarkable thing, though, is not that such moments have occurred, but how modest and short-lived they've proved to be.

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WNU Editor: Yup .... when it comes to U.S. defense spending, there are just too many hands in the till. On a side note .... my Chinese contacts are telling me the same thing is happening on defense spending in China, and it is one of the main reasons why President Xi has cracked down on the military using corruption as his excuse to fire some generals. Increases in the Chinese military budget are slowing down, and there has been blow-back from the military and from the industries that support it. Hence .... the crackdown.