 To say that our government doesn't represent us would be a gross understatement because to say that they're out of touch and elites I feel like that's fairly obvious But I actually think it goes deeper than that the issue is that a lot of these people in Congress are genuinely Psychotic and before you say that I'm being purposefully hyperbolic Just consider their priorities for a moment as Kenny Stansel of common dreams explains the Biden administration's March request for 813 billion dollars in military spending for fiscal year 2023 already marked a 31 billion dollar increase over the current historically large sum of 782 billion dollars during its markup of the National Defense Authorization Act the House Armed Services Committee approved by a 42 to 17 margin representative Jared Golden's amendment to boost the top-line budget by 37 billion dollars the House panel's increase comes less than a week after the Senate Armed Services Committee voted to add $45 billion to Biden's $813 billion request pushing the upper chambers total proposed budget for national military spending in the coming fiscal year to a whopping 857.6 billion dollars including 817 billion for the Pentagon 30 billion for the Department of Energy and an additional 10.6 billion that falls outside NDA a jurisdiction now ask yourself this Do you recall a single pundit? Asking how we're gonna be able to pay for this considering the deficit and the national debt Has anyone on mainstream media asked? How is it that we can prioritize an expansion of our already bloated military budget? But yet we can't afford Education healthcare for our residents You probably haven't heard that but what you did hear conversations about with regard to fiscal responsibility Was a really important program to feed children in the United States So at the beginning of the pandemic the US Department of Agriculture put in place an initiative that would expand meal waivers to students Allowing millions upon millions of students to eat school lunches for free without accumulating school lunch debt and for international viewers You didn't miss here what I just said school lunch debt is a phenomenon in the United States where students can literally go into debt If they eat school lunches without paying for them. Yeah, that's that's our country That's the kind of country that we live in here But unfortunately, you know the Senate especially Senate Republicans didn't want to extend this program for another year Why because they cited concerns about the cost now? what is the total cost of Extending this program for one more year You ready for this? 11 billion dollars Because that's 11 billion dollars that we could be spending on the military or elsewhere They decided I just can't go along with this program to feed millions of children in the United States Now we don't necessarily know what's going to happen But currently this program is set to expire on June 30th and after some pushback Our incredibly reasonable senators are fighting for the people by introducing a 90-day extension So rather than having this program expire on June 30th It'll now like it now expire on September 30th of 2022 How merciful a 90-day extension so that way when the overwhelming majority of children are out of school That's when We'll pay for lunch waivers. I Mean we have a government that is incapable of meeting the basic needs of citizens and They refuse to meet the basic needs of citizens, but yet without question from the mainstream media for many politicians They're expanding the military budget again, I Just I don't know how anyone can view this government as legitimate Because every subsequent year at the military budget gets bigger and bigger and bigger and yet we keep hearing how it's so Expensive and cost prohibitive to pay for health care for every American to feed students But there's not a peep from these same motherfuckers about the military budget. In fact, they want to expand that I mean I'm not saying that these politicians would have a change of heart if they were named and shamed But if the media at least Educated the American people about this double standard. Maybe they'd be a little bit more apprehensive about re-electing these same fucking ghouls every two or six years Now not everyone thankfully Approved of this grotesque increase because representative Sarah Jacobs of California decided to denounce it and announced she'd be voting against it and she also Explained how horrible this is and what I think was a pretty powerful speech take a look It's pretty unconscionable that even without this increase We're talking about a budget of over 800 billion dollars and yet I will still have constituents in in the military who have unacceptable housing conditions I will still have military families Thousands of whom are on a waitlist to get child care I will still have over 39,000 members of military families in San Diego County alone who have to visit the food bank every single month So yes, we need to increase funding for to expand resources for mental health and housing and child care We need to address the impact of inflation on our service members But these are priorities that we can and we should address within the existing top-line number that we have and If we are really serious about competing with China We need a better resource and funded diplomatic corps need greater investments in our development practitioners So we have resources to compete with China's investments We need to invest in our education system in innovation in our domestic infrastructure and pandemic preparedness That is what will determine if we are competitive with China Not whether we have one more LCS that as a chairwoman spear said doesn't even work and as the Pentagon themselves said they don't need For the last 20 years. We've been told we need more But I think it's time to recognize that more is not a policy and yes We have a lot of challenges, but there are simply not military solutions to every problem You mean we can't create lunch bombs to drop on schools If you can utilize the military Deliver these lunches and tanks perhaps That would make them more inclined to support this because you know as long as we're spending money on the military That's a okay. It's truly just it's ridiculous and the fact that there are some lawmakers willing to stand up That's cause for celebration, I guess, but it's nowhere near enough people speaking out about this There should be universal condemnation and when this proposal was announced by Jared Golden He should be laughed out of the room, but it was approved overwhelmingly So now one more speech that's worth highlighting is from representative Ro Khanna who denounced this in no uncertain terms Part of me wonders when we're just gonna get the amendment to have a trillion dollar defense budget Because it seems that's where we're going. I mean every year. They're basically adding 30 billion more to what the president wants And I think that's what we really need to think of on this committee if you're supporting this amendment You're basically paving the way to a trillion-dollar defense Is that what we want in this country a trillion dollars more more than a half of our discretionary budget is Going into defense Compared to all of the other needs the security needs that this country has now obviously We have major threats with Russia on the Ukraine border where the president has done an extraordinary job in rallying NATO and standing up for Ukraine and We passed on large bipartisan majority support for Ukraine the threat that China poses with Taiwan But that doesn't mean that we need defense budgets that are more than they were at the height of the Cold War That was a serious threat, too But we had the imagination and the innovation to be able to meet those threats without consuming over half our Discretionary budget. I just want to be clear There is no country in the world that has anywhere close to half over half the major power That's putting over half its discretionary budget Into defense and I would rather for us to be the preeminent economy of the 21st century Be investing in the health of our people in the education of our people in the industries of the future As we compete with China. Let me just make one more point about China. You know what China is really doing in 2025 They're not putting all their money in defense. They've got a made in China initiative They have a little Giants initiative. You know what the little Giants initiative is? It's four thousand startups that they think are in critical technologies that they're funding. They're funding their universities They're producing engineers and scientists millions of them That's what's going to make America lose if we don't invest in the new technologies If we don't invest in the new companies if we don't invest in the new industries if we don't make more things in America It is easy to just keep upping the defense budget in this committee. I trust President Biden I would support his defense budget But what requires more imagination is to actually get production back to actually do the things that are going to make us win In the 21st century. Yeah, well, I don't trust Biden personally But his broader point still stands these countries who the US government has deemed our enemies They're not pouring every single penny that they have into the military In fact, if you look at defense spending for 2022, the US spends more than the next nine biggest Spenders combined. So even if we cut our defense budget in half We'd still be the biggest spender globally by a lot But cutting defense is out of the question however spending money for health care and education and student debt cancellation and on school lunches Is always met with concerns of how are we going to pay for it health care? How are we going to pay for that education? How are we going to pay for that school lunches for children? I don't know how we're going to pay for that too expensive. Sorry. We can't spend a measly 11 billion dollars It's just absolutely ridiculous um Our culture is perverted and sick and our lawmakers our politicians Prioritized spending on death and destruction as opposed to feeding people literally and since rokhana brought up biden I think he deserves a special fuck you as well for asking for a higher military budget because sure the house in the senate They want to increase the military budget even more than what he's requesting But he himself is requesting a bigger military budget than the last year It's a sick situation and I just don't know how this is sustainable because the people You know, they're already fed up, right? They can't necessarily name what's happening specifically, but they're fed up And it's only gonna get worse So I just don't know how much longer the american people are going to take this abuse this violence from their government