Watch Bill Moyers tonight - defense spending revisited - Kucinich

I was just adding two more cents to the DD - Dennis Kucinich thread when Skinner closed the thing on my ass.

The thing I wanted to add is that Kooch is (to my knowledge) the only candidate who proposes to finance his suggested improvements out of the military budget.
That is a gutsy thing to do in this time of "war", wouldn't you agree?

Anyway, I was making reference to the excellent National Priorities Project (http://www.nationalpriorities.org) and a Bill Moyers 'Now' episode from earlier this year (http://www.pbs.org/now/index.html).
As I was checking my links, I noticed that tonight will be a rerun or a follow-up on the subject that is a must-see in my opinion.

The bottom line is, that anybody who promises to make any costly changes without cutting the military budget or a significant tax raise is ...well...lying.
Because of the way the federal budget is made-up, anything that costs (serious) money will have to come either from Social Services, Medicare, Education or the Military budget. What would Jesus pick? More importantly...what would YOU pick?

To go full circle, Kooch wants to cut the military budget to make some <b>real improvements</b>. That isn't going to get him elected without people being informed about it, but it is the only honest answer to the ever-popular question "how are you going to pay for this?"

If you haven't already, watch Now tonight and check out the National Priorities Project. Also read the interview with Chuck Spinney on the PBS site. Good stuff.

kick

I thinks if we want to balance the budget, we should cut from DoD, just my opinion honestly, I am not a fan of budget balancing, I see the goal, but let me say I am a tax and spend liberal, eat my shorts Karl Rove and co!

when you look at the hundreds of billions {and the waste} that's a lot of our money that could finance progressive programs for a better America.

And, still keep US strong on defense.

A lot of money from only a 15% budget decrease...

http://www.cdi.org/program/index.cfm?ProgramID=15

U.S. Military Budget
Site Last Modified: November 3, 2003

The administration of President George W. Bush is requesting $399.1 billion for the military in fiscal year 2004 ($379.9 billion for the Defense Department and $19.3 billion for the nuclear weapons functions of the Department of Energy). This is $16.9 billion above current levels, an increase of 4.4 percent. In all, the administration plans to spend $2.7 TRILLION on the military over the next six years – and this as both the Office of Management and Budget and the Congressional Budget Office project a federal deficit as high as $200 billion to $300 billion next year.

15% would generate $60 Billion a year for other programs! It's time...capitalism, oligarchy, and fascism are coming together in amazingly dangerous and destructive ways.