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Bernie Sanders on the EPA, military and the ACA

Published by marco on

In 12 minute, Bernie provides some very good context and puts some budget numbers in perspective. He takes Trump to task about how he lies about supporting the environment and what his budget increase for the military could pay for.

Bernie Sanders' […] Response To Trump's Speech To Congress (YouTube)

Bernie says that the $83 billion extra that Trump wants for the military for next year could also pay for all qualified public-university students as well as make a good start on helping other students with their loans. That 83 billion could pay for single-payer Medicare for everyone who doesn’t have health care in the US. Hell, it could solve world hunger almost three times over.

But Trump follows all of his predecessors in having no compunction about increasing the military budget. The Council on Foreign Relations would disagree with that blanket statement—and they seem to have the data to back it up. However, the official military budget has always been manipulated to the same degree as the employment numbers. For example, the cost of running foreign wars generally run under their own budgets. Black budgets for the 17 (known) intelligence agencies is never included.[1]

At any rate, even if we stick to official numbers, what Bernie says is true: the U.S. military budget is bigger than the next 12 largest budgets combined.


[1] While we’re on the subject, I only know of two agencies: the CIA and the NSA. The others are listed in United States Intelligence Community: Members and include such generic-sounding organizations as National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, Coast Guard Intelligence and so on.