CounterPunch Exclusives

CounterPunch Exclusives

Show Me the Money: A Loutish Administration Confronts a Craven Congress

Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair

Louts pressing false claims, faux principled types seeking to score successes against clearly useless targets.  Jules Hurst, in trying to discharge the duties of the comptroller, had some news for members of the House Armed Services Committee: the Iran War had drawn $25 billion from the coffers of Freedom Land which, for the budget wags, amount to the entire budget of NASA for a year.  It was further explained that most of that coin went on munitions.  The top Democrat on the Committee, Rep. Adam Smith, exuded relief.  “I am glad you answered that question.  Because we’ve been asking for a hell of a long time, and no one’s given us the number.”

This fun bit of arithmetic did little to clear any cobwebs.  A figure of $11.3 billion had been swerving in and out of the Pentagon as a measure of the first six days of the war, suggesting that the assessment for the committee was just some spreadsheet jigging.  The truth may well lie in another country, as it often is when it comes to defence matters.

Whatever he might have thought of the war so far (dare one ask?), the begging bowl antics of the US Secretary of Defense (War) Pete Hegseth were evident in fronting up to the House Armed Services Committee.  This is budget time, and no other power on Planet Earth spends on its armed forces like the United States.   When trying to make a case before what might be loosely called representatives of the people of the US imperium, one must, at least, make an effort.  In testifying in support for the administration’s proposed Fiscal Year (FY) 2027 budget for the Pentagon, some $1.5 trillion was advised.  In his recorded statement, Hegseth had the following justification: “The 1.5 trillion budget will ensure that the United........

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