A bipartisan warhawk group of 10 Senators has introduced legislation for a further supplemental defense budget for the Ukraine war, to add $70 billion to the White House’s $886 billion proposal for Fiscal Year 2024, which was agreed on in the recent “debt ceiling” deal. That deal required primarily Democratic support to pass the Senate; Republican Senators objected, not to the budget deficits running at $2 trillion/year, or more, since FY2021, but rather were angry that military spending was much too low to defeat Russia and surround China! The supplemental defense spending bill would put FY2024 military spending at least at $950 billion, and it is very likely to advance.
Look, then, at federal spending in Fiscal Year 2021, in comparison to what this would mean for Fiscal Year 2024, to see the military-industrial “Ukraine war” complex seizing the economy, and threatening it with insolvency. (The FY2021 figures are from KFF, the Kaiser Foundation, Figure 2: https://www.kff.org/medicare/issue-brief/what-to-know-about-medicare-spending-and-financing/#:~:text= )
Expenditures for old age and healthcare insurance (Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security/Survivors/Disability, CHIPS, etc.) were $2.7 trillion in FY2021; they would be roughly $3 trillion in FY2024;
Interest on federal debt was $400 billion in FY2021; it will be roughly $1.1 trillion in FY2024;
