The White House, “President” Musk, and all of Trump’s sycophants in Congress keep telling us that cutting Medicare / Medicaid, firing National Park Employees, the mass clearing out of vital government agencies (like all the Nuclear safety employees were summarily fired BEFORE these morons figured out how necessary they were and THEN couldn’t figure out how to contact them to fix their mistake?)… “This is all about saving money! It’s about balancing the budget, getting our national debt under control, getting rid of this “WOKE” deficit spending that’s out of control!” (Funny, isn’t it? That in all this discussion, over 4 TRILLION dollars in tax cuts to the 1% of wealthiest Americans almost NEVER gets mentioned?)
This is nonsense to which it’s relatively east to call BS: If our Federal government were REALLY interested in saving money and getting the federal budget under control? They wouldn’t be dilly – dallying with a million here or there in vital and needed safety net / social spending: They would start with the 800 pound gorilla in the room – the Defense budget. $850 BILLION dollars set aside for the military / industrial complex in fiscal 2025: America spends more money on “defense” than any other nation on earth – in fact? We spend more than the next NINE nations on the list COMBINED! U.S. total Defense spending in 2023 = $916 Billion. Compared to $883 Billion spent by… (wait for it)… China, Russia, India, Saudi Arabia, United Kingdom, Germany, Ukraine, France, and Japan combined.
If our GOP led government really wants to get serious and get our budgetary “house” in order? I have a very easy – and significant – place to start. Mothball the six oldest aircraft carriers and their strike groups immediately. The United States currently has Eleven nuclear powered aircraft carriers, nine of which are over 20 years old. (six of those are over 30 years old and two are over 40 years old), which means they have already had to undergo the incredibly expensive process of refueling and refitting which adds to the already massive cost to maintain them.) Three more are under construction, two on top of that have been ordered and contracts signed, with no indication that any of the oldest will actually be decommissioned regardless of projected dates. (U.S.S. Nimitz and Dwight D. Eisenhower were scheduled for decommissioning, but those dates have already been “pushed back” multiple times, raising the question as to when they will actually happen.) Compare this number to every other nation on the planet. No other navy anywhere has more than THREE aircraft carriers (and China only added its 3rd carrier to its fleet this month, February, 2025). All other nations only have one or two carriers, and the U.S. still has more than the next SEVEN nations combined.) Why does the United States need so many aircraft carriers? Not for defense; that’s patently obvious. In fact, the military clearly states that our 11 aircraft carriers exist to “PROJECT force.” I.E.? We need eleven in order to continue being the bully of the world. Why not finally grow up and come to the table of 193 sovereign nations as an equal, not as the bully? What an outrageous concept that might be!
Let’s do the math: Every one of these carrier strike groups costs us taxpayers $6.5 million dollars PER DAY to operate. Yes, that’s 6 and 1/2 million bucks EVERY SINGLE DAY! Mothballing the six oldest carrier strike groups will save $14,235,000,000 in the annual defense budget. (That’s 14 BILLION, 235 MILLION dollars every year.) Compared to something like the whopping $182 million that Elon Musk is claiming will be saved by gutting the National Institutes of Health and endangering how many lives? Or the mass firings in the National Parks system in advance of this summer’s tourist season, where Musk’s “experts” (who must have failed 7th grade math) claim this will save $238 million to offset those tax cuts to billionaires that are desperately needed by that 1% of us. The reality is, the cuts in the National Parks ranks will amount to 0.00456% of what’s needed for those tax cuts – a rounding error.
If Republicans want to get serious and cut spending to responsible levels? Great! I’m a bona-fide liberal / progressive and I’m on board with that idea 100 percent! Just quit fucking around playing word games that only hide the fact that this is all about ideology, NOT about money!
People who truly are “WOKE?” Are smart enough to see through this bullshit smokescreen. I like the way Jane Fonda puts the lie about this out front and center. Those with ears to hear? Listen – if you are capable.