American budget priorities

From Robert Reich

It always amazes me how Republicans holler “waste, fraud, and abuse!” whenever it comes to federal programs for the poor, but they don’t seem to mind when the Defense Department puts a thousand times more money down rat holes. Yesterday the oversight team monitoring U.S. spending in Afghanistan discovered that the Department of Defense spent $43 million to build a gas station in Afghanistan that should have cost roughly $500,000. And none of the money for the Pentagon’s entire $800 million program to stabilize the Afghan economy can be accounted for, according to John Sopko, inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction and a former federal prosecutor appointed by President Obama in 2012 to watch over spending in Afghanistan. "I have never in my lifetime seen the Department of Defense or any government agency clam up and claim they don't know anything about a program," he said. "Who's in charge? Why won't they talk?”

Next time someone tells you we can’t possibly cut the military budget to make room for domestic needs, tell them the Pentagon wastes more money than the rest of the federal government combined.

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