Todd M. Siebert: Graham vows to make spending money we don’t have his ‘No. 1 reason to live’

Despite story after story of massive waste and misappropriation of taxpayer funds at the Pentagon, Sen. Lindsey Graham says he’ll die before he lets the nation’s defense budget to be cut.

The Senate just rejected measures to raise defense and non-defense spending both by $18 billion amid obvious concerns about the nation’s snowballing debt.

As DefenseNews reported:

Defense hawks, led in the Senate by Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain, R-Ariz., had pressed to raise 2017 defense authorization by $18 billion, as Democrats fought to amend McCain’s measure with an $18 billion match to fund domestic priorities, some related to national security. Each bill would have fallen under emergency wartime funding, which is exempt from sequestration budget caps.

Hawkish Republicans argued a fiscally stretched military needs the increase as it struggles to absorb readiness and maintenance shortfalls and juggle threats the world over. The bill added troops, ships, jets and tanks left out of the Obama administration’s $602 billion budget request.

“I think I am going to go all over the country and talk about what we the Congress are doing to those who serve us,” Graham told reporters. “I am making it my No. 1 reason to live.”

Heritage Foundation budget expert Justin Johnson noted that the expansion in military spending would be welcome— but only if offset by cuts elsewhere.

“Some Senators are proposing to increase investment in readiness programs by $18 billion,” Johnson said. “That would set our military up for a stronger future.”

But, Johnson added: “A stronger future should not be built on an unstable foundation of crippling debt. Any investment increases should be made in conjunction with spending cuts in non-defense accounts.

“We must increase our national security budget, but do it the right way.”

A good start would be conducting a serious review of U.S. military spending and listening to government watchdogs’ seemingly endless reports of waste and outright stupidity in the military budget.

Graham, however, disagrees that there should be any constraint or scrutiny over the military budget.

“There’s an emergency in the United States military,” Graham said, “and we should be able to add money to the United States military, based on an emergency that’s real and not be limited by caps that are insane.”

Pretty remarkable stuff, considering…

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from PropagandaGuard https://propagandaguard.wordpress.com/2016/06/10/graham-vows-to-make-spending-money-we-dont-have-his-no-1-reason-to-live/