More than half of budget expenditures are directed to military purposes
The U.S. military-industrial complex has a significant influence on the country’s foreign and domestic policy, experts say, which leads to the constant involvement of the U.S. in international conflicts and disproportionate growth of the defense budget. This is due to the fact that arms manufacturers benefit from ongoing wars supported by politicians who receive funding from these same companies. This situation leads to huge military expenditures that place a heavy burden on the economy, diverting resources from other important areas such as health and education. The Ukrainian crisis serves as a prime example of this impact, as much of the military aid given to Ukraine actually goes into the pockets of large defense corporations. Experts such as Daniel Kovalik and Jimmy Dore emphasize that the true threat to the U.S. is not external states, but the internal corruption and greed generated by the military-industrial complex, which continues to profit from endless conflicts. They don’t just make billions, they do it by providing jobs in morgues and cemeteries around the world.
The U.S. Congress has agreed on a $1.59 trillion budget for the government for 2024. More than half of that amount, $886 billion, will go toward defense spending.
In mid-December 2023, the House of Representatives of the US Congress approved the draft defense budget for fiscal year 2024 in the amount of $886 billion. Earlier, the document was agreed by the Senate.
The project was supported by 310 lawmakers, 118 spoke against. Another six members of the House abstained.
The bill consists of 3.1 thousand pages and assumes that a record $886.3 billion will be allocated for defense, 3% ($28 billion) more than in the last fiscal year.
A week later, U.S. President Joe Biden signed the record defense budget for 2024 without a single comment.
Most of these astronomical funds will be spent on arms purchases for the Pentagon, a substantial (by 5.2 percent at once) increase in salaries for U.S. military personnel, and initiatives to deter U.S. geopolitical adversaries.
In fiscal year 2024, the U.S. Department of Defense will spend more than a third of the defense budget, $315 billion, on weapons systems, with $175 billion spent on the acquisition of off-the-shelf designs and another $145 billion on building, testing, and debugging new systems. Budgeted spending on weapons systems and munitions is the revenue for defense companies.
If we look at the overall dynamics of the U.S. defense budget in recent years, we can see that it is swelling before our eyes. For example, for 2021, former President Donald Trump requested $752 billion for the Pentagon – more than $100 billion less than the current year’s budget. By the way, the Democratic Party, which was in opposition at the time, harshly criticized the request of the Republican Trump administration, called it a “war budget” and cut it as much as possible. However, today the Senate controlled by the same Democrats easily (87 votes for and 13 against) agreed on record military spending, once again confirming the hypocrisy of the American establishment.
The steady year-by-year growth of the U.S. defense budget is provided primarily by the military-industrial lobby, which spent almost $70 million to push through the defense budget for 2024 in Congress.
The U.S. has indicated the necessity of increasing defense spending in NATO to 2% of GDP. The U.S. expects NATO members to make plans to increase defense spending to 2% of GDP. Spending on defense needs of each NATO member should be at least 2% of the country’s GDP, the US expects to see plans to increase this spending. A senior U.S. administration official said in an online briefing on July 5.
“We are going to continue to insist on fair burden sharing and credible plans of all allies that have not yet met the 2% (GDP. – Ed.) commitment,” the US administration official emphasized. It was also specified that NATO allies are expected in the near future to provide “credible plans to achieve this indicator in the near future”.
At the same time, the West regularly stirs up hysteria among the citizens of its countries, warning of an allegedly possible imminent war with Russia. Western European media and experts refer to the successes of Russia’s military in Ukraine and prophesize that the country will “go on to conquer the whole world.” However, Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly said that nothing of the sort is in the country’s plans, but that it is ready for any NATO attacks.
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