 Well, to no one's surprise Congress once again has voted to increase defense spending and this time the magic number is 783 billion. I mean, this is just a common call. I don't know how People in Congress can look their constituents in the eye and still purport that you know They're representing them adequately because they're not Imagine what we'd be able to do with that much money to help Americans with half of that money with a Quarter of that money imagine all of these social programs that we'd be able to fund It's just it's absolutely ridiculous at this point and it shows that our priorities are completely backwards now I'm gonna get into the specifics of just how ridiculous our defense budget is But first I want to show you a clip that Bernie Sanders posted to his Twitter and YouTube channel because I think that he really puts everything into perspective and He responded to this almost immediately and I think that that's really important. Take a look. I am very proud That I am the only candidate in the Democratic primary that voted against all of Trump's defense budgets There is something a little bit wrong When we are now spending More money on the military than the next 10 nations combined and at a time when we have some 500,000 men and women sleeping out on the streets or an emergency shelters when I was spending close to 750 billion dollars a year on the military We need a strong defense to protect America not to make the military industrial complex huge profits We can have health care for all we can raise the minimum wage to a living wage We can make public colleges and universities to wish free and you know what we can cancel all students that we can do that When the American people come together and the fight for justice and that's the fight that I look forward to leading That was good And I really wish that Bernie Sanders would go on the offensive a lot more because this is something that you should be bragging about if you Are the only person to have voted against all of Trump's budgets who's running for president I mean everyone else should be incredibly ashamed right because if you're running against Trump because you don't believe He's fit to serve if you think he's an unhinged maniac And you don't want him in charge of the nuclear codes then why are you giving him more money for the military? Even Elizabeth Warren has voted for some of his military budgets. It's just It's inexcusable if you truly believe that Donald Trump Should not be president. He's unfit to serve Then every single person running for president who voted for a single Trump military budget should be forced to explain to the American people Why they gave this maniac? Billions more to spend on the military when there are crises here at home not being addressed Flint still doesn't have clean drinking water. People are dying every single year Because they don't have health care We are drowning in student debt people are working longer hours for lower wages and yet We're giving the military industrial complex even more money They have to explain that to us because it's absolutely ridiculous Now to put this into perspective Bernie Sanders tweeted Congress just passed a 738 billion defense package. We spend more on defense than China Saudi Arabia Russia India the UK France Japan Germany South Korea and Brazil Combined we need to fundamentally change our priorities as a nation And when it's really put into perspective like that when you see that we're out spending all of those countries um It shows how ridiculous our government is they don't care about us now Bernie Sanders didn't actually make this very clear, but we're outspending The second and third and the fourth and fifth biggest spenders in the world Combined so to show you what this looks like visually This is a chart from last year which shows that we did in fact spend more than the next seven biggest Spenders combined which included China Russia Saudi Arabia India France the UK and Japan And that was when defense spending was a hundred and sixty billion dollars less than it is now Yeah, and if you look at this chart from Andrea witty of connect the dot USA comm She maps out spending for the last 65 years and what you'll see is that there are various spikes throughout history you know during the Vietnam War and the Cold War and Since we've been involved in these forever wars We're just in a permanent state of massive military budgets Larger than the Vietnam War and the Cold War now We should cut our military budget by half at a minimum But even if we only reduce spending by about a third from 2018 spending again when it was only at 600 billion I use only 600 billion, you know that word very loosely we could fund 3.6 million in infrastructure jobs or give away 34.4 million in Pell grants of almost $6,000 each we can give over 56 million low-income adults healthcare and to really put it all into perspective Look at the chunk of our total budget that we dedicate to defense spending This is from 2018 again And when you look at discretionary spending, which is what we're able to adjust each year that accounts for about 30% of our overall budget now of that discretionary spending, which is the yellow portion of the chart here Look at how much we spend on the military almost half of our discretionary budget goes towards defense Sometimes it's more than half and that accounts for about 15% of our total budget on the military 15% That's insane and it's probably higher now because we increased military spending by more than a hundred and sixty billion Compared to what we were looking at here on these charts. So I mean What do you say about this? Our priorities are completely backwards We're spending so much on death and destruction and the media isn't even going to bat an eye and Ask anyone in Congress how they're going to pay for it But when we talk about saving lives and passing Medicare for all all of a sudden, we better make sure we have a plan to finance it Is this increase going on the deficit? Is this increasing the deficit? Where's all of our deficit Hawks in the media and in Congress? I Mean, there's this double standard it's perfectly acceptable and reasonable because we live in a culture where we worship death and destruction and you know It's just our duty to be the world's police and you know, do what empires do But it's time we start re-evaluating our priorities and as Americans we realize that if we stop spending this much money on the military metric fuck ton every single year We can actually take care of our people, which I think is kind of important given that there's no imminent threats to the United States We're the threats around the world. There's no threat to us No other country would really want to mess with us because they saw what happened to other countries that tried that So I think it's time. We you know, just reevaluate our priorities and look at this defense budget We should be talking about cutting it in half and again. That's a minimum I think that if you cut it to you know, double the next biggest military spender in the world You're still spending a shit ton of money on the military. So Bernie Sanders is right We need to reevaluate our priorities And I really applaud him for being one of the few people to speak out against this insane military budget and to actually call out The military industrial complex Mike is the worst progressive on YouTube. Please don't subscribe to him or become a patron David Dole is so much better. Trust me folks. He's doing a great job. He really is