In fiscal year 2015, Pentagon and related spending will total $598 billion, accounting for 54 percent of all federal discretionary spending. That's roughly the size of the next seven largest military budgets around the world, combined.
There is an entity whose job it is to prevent this sort of abuse: Congress. With each failure at the Pentagon, Congress is failing, too.
Even though they often come up short, the U.S. has a good thing in its veterans’ programs. Veterans deserve this level of care and dignity - in fact, we all do.
In the face of massive suffering in Gaza and disregard for international law by the Israeli government, the U.S. must not provide additional military aid or weapons that would cause more deaths. Instead, the U.S. should use its considerable diplomatic strength to call for an immediate ceasefire.
“A ceasefire is the only way to stop innocent suffering,” said Lindsay Koshgarian, Program Director of the National Priorities Project at the Institute for Policy Studies.
