(Continued from Part 2.)
The current war in Ukraine is a prime example of how the system works for large corporations without providing a single benefit for We the People.
After the Soviet Union collapsed in late 1991, Russia asked to join NATO. Even though having Russia as a NATO partner would have been the best possible arrangement for the citizens of the US, European Union, and Russia, the US, needing enemies in order to keep justifying obscene defense budgets, dictated “no”.
In 2014, the US orchestrated the overthrow of Ukraine’s freely-elected government to install an anti-Russian president, then contrary to all the agreements and treaties we signed with Russia, invited Ukraine to join NATO so the US could put missiles right on Russia’s border, 275 miles from Moscow. After successfully inciting Russia to attack Ukraine, the military industrial complex (MIC) got richer selling arms to Uncle Sam who gave them to Ukraine. Congress added the cost to the national debt. US lackey Boris Johnson went to Kiev two months into the war to talk Zelensky, who knew Ukraine didn’t have a prayer of winning against Russia, out of negotiating a truce. The MIC made three more years of obscene profits, all paid for by Congress’s deficit spending. At some point, the war will end, as Trump has promised. But We the People will have gained nothing but more debt. Ukraine will have gained nothing, lost much of their infrastructure, and the majority of the 1,000,000+ dead and wounded were Ukrainian. The political leadership doesn’t care about the human losses on either side, the US-led NATO-stan proclaimed they were willing to fight Russia down to the last Ukrainian.
At war’s end, BlackRock, (another large US corporation who owns Congress) will go in and make obscene profits cleaning up the mess and rebuilding infrastructure. Congress will “loan” this money to Ukraine but it actually goes straight into BlackRock’s coffers before the cleanup begins. All this money will be added to Uncle Sam’s national debt. The US knows Ukraine can never repay the debt so using what’s known as “debt-trap diplomacy,” one condition of the loan is that Ukraine pledges to give up control of their resources so big American corporations can go in and extract the oil, minerals, and other resources to enrich themselves. These huge corporations in the MIC, BlackRock, Big Oil and mining companies, write large campaign-donation checks to Congressmen, give them insider info on stock trades, and promise them high-paying jobs as “consultants” after they retire from Congress. None of this benefits We the People but we’ve been propagandized to believe it does somehow so we keep sending fiscally irresponsible congressmen to Washington to save us from the boogeymen they’ve created. When they pass the next budget with 33% of the expenses put on Uncle Sam’s card, we gripe like hell wondering how they can be so fiscally irresponsible, but then in the next election, send them back to Washington to screw us all over again.
With Greenland: “wash, rinse, repeat.” Under the usual guise of “national security,” pay BlackRock big bucks to go in and build up infrastructure and add several new military bases. Pay the MIC to supply the bases with weapons and military hardware. Congress adds all of this, in addition to the cost of buying Greenland in the first place, to the national debt. Once the infrastructure is in place, let large corporations who bought off Congress go in and extract all the oil, minerals, and rare earths. Nobody is asking what benefit We the People are gaining from it all other than more debt and closer to the financial waterfall. But hey, how cool is it that we bought Greenland?!
The MIC made 20 years of profits from the Afghanistan war. The mightiest military in the history of the universe was unable to conquer an Afghan army made up of a bunch of boys with BB guns riding ponies. Why did we still lose the war after 20 years? Because Congress didn’t want to win the war, their MIC buddies needed the money and Congressmen Smith, Jones, and Rutherford wanted the “consulting” jobs after they left congress. We left millions of dollars of military equipment behind so the MIC could make a zillion more dollars selling new stuff to the US Department of Defense to replace it all.
Nobody asked why we and our children and grandchildren gained from the $2 trillion we spent there. When we were runt of Afghanistan, that $2 trillion amounted to 7.4% of our national debt at the time! That 7.4% should be a “holy cr*p!” number but everyone ignores it in the nebulous name of “national security.”
We. the taxpayers. almost never ask ourselves how any of the money, and not just defense spending, spent by Congress benefits us. That should be our most important question but we fail to even wonder, let alone ask the question. Again, we don’t have fiscally irresponsible congressmen, only fiscally irresponsible voters.
It should be plainly clear why the defense budget is almost a trillion dollars. It should be plain that there’s no way to justify 800+ military bases. It should be plain that the world would be a better place and the US would be more secure if Russia were our friend like they want to be, instead of making them our enemy. Aside from these obvious reasons, there’s still no reason to deficit spend $1 trillion dollars every year in the name of national security.
But propaganda is a powerful thing.
Even though the defense budget takes up almost half of the money Uncle Sam puts on his credit card each year, all of which is added to the national debt, how likely is it that any meaningful defense budget reductions will happen in order to reduce deficit spending? Based on how many people are offended by this talk of the real purpose of our military, I’m more likely to win the lottery without even buying a ticket than we are to see any defense budget allocations reduced, let alone cut in half which would be a good starting point.
It’s safe to say the almost trillion dollars spent on defense won’t be seeing any cuts. That brings our total to Uncle Sam spending 118% of his 2025 income.
Other Discretionary Spending
The other half of the money Uncle Sam puts on his credit card every year brings the total budget up to spending 133% of Uncle Sam’s 2025 income. Most of this other discretionary spending finances government agencies that didn’t exist in times past, and if they did, it was at a much smaller level. Some of these should be eliminated, others at least reduced. This includes, among others, the Department of Education, Department of Transportation, International Affairs, Agriculture, Labor, Science, and NASA. Elon Musk has clearly shown that capitalism can provide all the technology and know-how to make a useful space program work without the need of a government agency.
In his inaugural speech, Trump said his next mission was to plant the American flag on Martian soil, something that won’t benefit any of us taxpayers. Nobody is worried about how it will contribute to deficit spending and the national debt. Nobody seems to be care that the American flag will probably be planted in the mud at the bottom of the fiscal Niagara Falls before it’s planted in Martian soil. Don’t expect any cuts in NASA’s $25 billion budget.
If Reagan and Papa Bush couldn’t get rid of the Department of Education, DOGE won’t be able to get that through Congress, either. The lobbyists of all these unnecessary wasteful departments will use their powers, as usual, to keep Congress from doing what’s necessary. While we need Trump’s Golden Age of Common Sense as much as anything our country has ever needed since 1776, Congress won’t be helping him to create that age.
The US is the only civilized country still making pennies. The planchets are made by a single company who makes large donations to politicians on both sides of the aisle. What are the chances of getting Congress to pass even a small percentage of DOGE’s recommendations when they haven’t even been able to do something as sensible as getting rid of that miserable little coin we all loathe? Cash registers can already round to the nearest nickel if needed so eliminating pennies would be fairly easy.
Tariffs
The history of tariffs tells us they do more harm than good. The companies paying the tariffs will have no option but to pass the cost of the tariffs on to consumers. Uncle Sam pockets the difference between the old price and the new price and Americans pay this hidden tax in the form of inflation.
The Tax Policy Center (TPC) estimates, based on 2024 imports, that Trump’s proposed tariffs (including a 60% tariff on all Chinese imports) would generate a gross income of $3.7 trillion over ten years, or $370 billion per year. The net income would be $280 billion per year due to other reductions in revenue the tariffs could cause. The TPC further estimates these tariffs would result in an average lowering of spendable income for each worker by $1,800 dollars per year.
Let me put this in very personal terms so you can better understand: since the entire defense budget is paid for with deficit spending, your $1,800 per year would go directly to the defense department so you can personally finance the US foreign policy which the defense department carries out. Would you rather send your $1,800 to the military industrial complex who bought off Congress long ago, or would you perhaps prefer to keep your money to spend on things that are more important to you?
The $280 billion generated would only lower Congress’s deficit spending from this year’s $1.78 trillion dollars to $1.5 trillion dollars.
(To be concluded tomorrow, in Part 4.)