Confused about defense spending bill

[abelenkpe]

"The National Defense Authorization Act of 2012 passed the Senate on a 86-13 vote, a solid show of support that belied the considerable opposition and debate behind it."

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-congress-defense-20111216,0,654343.story

"Several Democrats said they voted for the bill — which sets Pentagon policy, authorizes $662 billion in spending and gives service members a pay raise — despite their concerns about the detainee provisions."

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I'm confused. I thought we were suffering a global economic crisis where everyone needed to make cuts, accept less pay, tighten their belts and accept austerity. Yet congress can overwhelmingly pass a defense spending bill of 662 billion, that provides pay increases after only eight weeks of negotiating?

How can they then turn around and threaten to shut down the government insisting that the payroll tax cut is unaffordable? And start talking of destroying Medicare, or raising the eligibility age? How can schools be underfunded, infrastructure left to rot, heating assistance be cut while defense spending passes so easily?

Does this bother anybody else?

[grasswire]

1. Halliburton must be fed. n/t

[Selatius]

2. Mostly, the money is going to on-going commitments that existed prior to the cuts.

We were in Iraq and Afghanistan long before any deal was ever reached over deficit reduction, which is a debate of where future cash flows should go as far as future commitments. They would probably say this is exempt from that consideration.

Having said that, no, I just don't think it's good policy to shred social programs/infrastructure-spending and continue to bolster military spending. Eventually, the country will spend itself into oblivion. The British Empire eventually had to give up all its military garrisons and colonial possessions because they simply couldn't afford the costs of stationing armies everywhere to put down rebellions in its territories. The nation's infrastructure was destroyed by World War Two, and civilians no longer tolerated all that money being spent on foreign occupations instead of rebuilding ruined infrastructure.

To be sure, US infrastructure isn't being routinely bombed in a blitz, but if nobody wants to spend any money maintaining it, it will fall apart into ruin at some point.

[abelenkpe]

3. Thank you for your thoughtful response

I have been so very busy lately and couldn't understand why it was so easy to find money for defense while everything else is such a struggle.