![us military budget us military budget](https://www.businessinsider.in/photo/80659821/riot-gear-clad-russian-police-violently-crackdown-on-peaceful-protests-over-navalnys-prison-sentence.jpg)
Us military budget free#
Congress could free up some cash by cancelling the the sea-launched nuclear missile the navy says it has no use for As long as the status quo prevails, it could happen again. This kind of near-miss has happened before. Once these missiles are launched, they cannot be recalled, which means that in the case of false information indicating an incoming Russian attack, pressure to use these weapons before they are destroyed could result in the US accidentally starting a nuclear war. In an era where every dollar of government spending is scrutinized, many are questioning the wisdom of the program as a growing chorus of political leaders, nuclear weapons experts and advocates draws attention to the profound drawbacks of land-based nuclear missiles. Since the early 1960s, these states have hosted a fleet of missiles capable of inflicting unthinkable damage if launched – and they are extremely vulnerable to a similar attack by their Russian counterparts. The US is committed to spending at least $264bn to replace the land-based nuclear missiles that wait tucked away in silos across the states of the “nuclear sponge”: Wyoming, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota and Colorado. The Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent program is just one of these. Topline numbers are higher even than the president’s budget request, which itself is $13bn more than the final Trump military budget request, and it preserves the Trump administration’s nuclear weapons programs that the Democrats ran on cancelling only a few short months ago.įor members of Congress trying to make one column match the other, there are plenty of opportunities to redirect defense spending toward domestic spending that would have a huge impact on Americans’ health and quality of life. Negotiations over the 2022 National Defense Authorization Act are also ongoing, and the contrast between the range of alternatives being seriously considered is striking. The Pentagon budget is the one area where massive, long-term government spending is not only considered totally normal, but suggestions to change the status quo are still mostly balked at. With progressive congressional power at a relative high and the experience of Covid-19 not quite behind us, it’s a perfect moment to look to the defense budget as a way to fund the recovery effort the US sorely needs. Rather than forcing more cuts that would further limit the bill’s transformative potential, throughout the process legislators have been considering funding sources that just a few years ago would have been unthinkable. A fter months of negotiations, Congress is struggling to come up with a plan to fund the Build Back Better Act.