Pentagon Needs $50 Billion More in Funding to Make Military Even More Lethal

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Pentagon Needs $50 Billion More in Funding to Make Military Even More Lethal

February 3rd, 2018

Awake Goy

With homelessness growing by the numbers in America due to poor economic conditions in the country, it looks like the US war machine puppets are ready for more war …and wanting to make it even more deadly than it already is.

According to The Hill,

Defense Secretary James Mattis on Thursday told House and Senate GOP lawmakers gathered at a party retreat here that the Trump administration will request $716 billion for defense spending for the new fiscal year that begins Oct. 1.

That figure is nearly $50 billion, or 7 percent, higher than Trump’s fiscal 2018 budget request for the Pentagon.

“I’m not subtle,” Mattis told GOP lawmakers at their annual retreat at the famed Greenbriar resort, which allows tours of its Cold War-era nuclear fallout shelters.

“I need to make the military more lethal. Some people think I’m supposed to be an equal-opportunity employer,” Mattis added, according to several sources in the closed-door meeting. That appeared to be a veiled shot at Democrats who have called for fiscal parity, with domestic spending receiving the same increase as defense spending.

Antiwar reports,

Speaking to Congressional Republicans during a visit to Greenbriar resort on Thursday, Defense Secretary James Mattis announced that he believes the US military needs to be made “more lethal,” and pushing for yet more money.

After a massive military spending increase last year, Mattis says he wants another $50 billion tacked on for next year. He mocked the idea of the military being an “equal opportunity employer” and emphasized lethality.

Mattis had similarly pushed the idea of making US troops more lethal in September, in the context of pushing for more predictable spending increases. This time as well he complained about continuing resolutions as a funding source, wanting money set out for a longer term.

Mattis says he is hoping to get 3-5% increases annually over the rate of inflation to both build readiness and to compete with Russia and China.

The US already far outspends all nations on their military.

Presenting the push for more funds as a push for lethality appears to be popular with hawks, though in practice the US military already kills a massive number of people as it is, and doesn’t seem to be approaching the limit of how many it could kill in a pinch.