With Congress and the White House mired in a debate over defense policy and appropriations bills, one Democratic lawmaker pressed his colleagues to consider the consequences—both at home and abroad—of profligate Pentagon spending.
Describing what he called “the waste of war,” Rep. John Garamendi (D-Calif.) spoke out against increased funding to maintain the nation’s nuclear arsenal
“We are now in the first quarter of a new nuclear arms race. It involves Russia and China, France, United Kingdom, and the United States are all rebuilding,” he said, noting that all countries mentioned are ”significantly upgrading their nuclear arsenals.”
Congress is poised to assent to President Obama’s request for increased funding to modernize the nation’s nuclear weapons fleet—a project that comes with a $348 billion price-tag over the next 10 years, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
Rep. Garamendi was considering a longer timescale when, on CSPAN’s Washington Journal, he cited congressional estimations forecasting that the planned nuclear renovations will cost $1 trillion over the next 30 years.
“Why are we having new stealth bombers, new rockets, new cruise missiles, new nuclear bombs? What is this all about?” he asked rhetorically, adding that the funding would be better supplied to domestic priorities like “education, infrastructure, health care.”
Republicans and Democrats are currently locking horns on Capitol Hill over how to fund the Pentagon next year. The GOP is moving to use an emergency fund to evade mandatory spending caps imposed by the 2011 sequestration deal. Many liberals, meanwhile, are arguing that the statutory ceilings constraining non-defense agencies should be simultaneously lifted, if the Pentagon is to be relatively unfettered.
“All of us, whether you are a career politician or not, should be looking at where the money is going and what is the purpose of it,” Rep. Garamendi said.
