Tag: taxes

Congress Grants Pentagon $58 Billion More Than Requested: DOD Report

US lawmakers granted the Department of Defense (DOD) more money than the Pentagon requested for in the fiscal 2022 defense budget, a recent Pentagon report shows.

In total, Congress sanctioned $58.55 billion in additional funds, according to the report. This includes $25.70 billion for operations and maintenance, $17.67 billion for procurement, $9.89 billion for research, development, test, and evaluation, $4.32 billion for military construction, and $947 million for military personnel.

The DOD initially had a base budget appropriation of $742.3 billion for fiscal 2022. As such, the extra $58.55 billion represents an almost 8 percent increase from the base budget. The Pentagon did not put in a request for any of the programs funded with the extra $58.55 billion.

These programs are not even in the so-called unfunded priorities lists—made up of items not included in the budget but considered critical—that departments and officers send to Congress annually.

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State spends half a BILLION dollars pushing ‘diversity’ and ‘equity’

The Democratic-controlled state of California spent millions on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives in the past several years, according to a report released Tuesday.

The report by The Center for Organizational Research and Education (CORE), a consumer protection nonprofit, examined about 400 public records requests to local and state governments as well as K-12 school districts and higher education institutions. California spent roughly $497 million on DEI activities between mostly 2020 and 2022 and years prior, according to CORE.

“DEI spending is out of control,” Will Coggin, a researcher for CORE, said in a statement to the Daily Caller News Foundation. “The people of California are footing the bill for diversity consultants, equity authors, and inclusion officials to rake in millions. With hundreds of millions already spent and potentially billions more to come, it’s a feeding frenzy funded by taxpayers.”

For instance, California’s Department of Fish and Wildlife spent close to $50,000 for “racial equity” workshops and trainings for employees between 2019 and 2021, according to the report. The state’s Department of Conservation spent around $180,000 on DEI initiatives for the fiscal years 2020 and 2021, the report says.

President Joe Biden issued an executive order in June 2021 requiring federal agencies implement DEI training and race-conscious hiring practices. DEI is often linked to Critical Race Theory, which holds that America is systemically racist and that people must view social interactions in terms of race.

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FOIA Documents: Nearly 2 Dozen Secret Wars Waged With Your Tax Dollars

As a note to remember:  These “wars” took place under President Donald Trump.

RT has the story.

The US has reportedly used a secretive authority called ‘127e’ to launch at least two dozen proxy wars since 2017, according to an article published on Friday by The Intercept. The outlet claims to have obtained never-before-seen documents and spoken to top officials with intimate knowledge of these programs.

The Intercept received the documents through the Freedom of Information Act, claiming these papers are the first ever official confirmation that at least 14 so-called ‘127e programs’ were active in the greater Middle East and Asia-Pacific regions as recently as 2020. In total, the Pentagon reportedly launched 23 separate 127e programs across the globe between 2017 and 2020, which cost US taxpayers $310 million.

The Intercept explains that 127e is one of several virtually unknown authorities granted to the Department of Defense by Congress over the last two decades. It authorizes US commandos to conduct “counterterrorism operations” in cooperation with foreign and irregular partner forces around the world with minimal outside oversight.

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Biden’s War Machine Is Sending Another $1.7 Billion To Ukraine

The Biden administration is announcing another $1.7 billion in aid to Ukraine, bringing the total taxpayer money spent on the proxy war more than $65 billion since the Russia invaded the European nation.

The additional aid was announced on Tuesday and is partially sponsored by the U.S. Agency of International Development (USAID). 

A statement from USAID says, “This additional funding will provide emergency food and cash assistance, safe drinking water, accessible shelter, logistical support, humanitarian coordination and protection, emergency health care, including mental health care and support for survivors of gender-based violence. This funding is in addition to USAID’s support for activities aimed specifically at alleviating shelter concerns during the coming winter months.”

It goes on to state, “The provision of cash will offset increased heating costs through the purchase of fuel for electricity, materials for light renovations (insulation), and the distribution of thermal blankets and winter clothes and shoes, especially for children and the elderly.”

To date, USAID has given the Ukrainian government $4 billion in budgetary support. The organization said these funds have been used to keep gas and electricity flowing to hospitals and schools, get humanitarian supplies to citizens, and pay the salaries of civil servants and teachers.

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US spending to counter Russian war effort exceeds first 5 years of war costs in Afghanistan

The Biden administration and lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have pledged to counter Russia’s war in Ukraine and the threat it poses to European security, and the funds so far committed to Kyiv already exceed U.S. costs for the first five years in Afghanistan. 

The Biden administration on Friday announced another $400 million military drawdown package to Ukraine as it attempts to fend off Russian advances.

The latest package was reportedly tailored in coordination with Ukrainian officials for what they specifically need on the front lines and comes just days after Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed victory over the eastern Luhansk region. 

Heavy artillery like howitzers and High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) are among the big-ticket items that Ukraine has said it needs to target Russian command and control hotspots that sit behind the front lines. 

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Biden Admin Spends $1.5 Million on ‘Transgender Programming’ for Inmates

The left is becoming more aggressive at pushing their transgender agenda on society, and it doesn’t seem like they’re going to stop forcing their woke narrative  any time soon. 

In fact, prisoners will now have luxurious options when it comes to “transitioning,” and all paid for by the American people, of course. 

The Department of Justice (DOJ) entered a $1.5 million contract with a private company to develop a “transgender programming curriculum” to be used in prisons across the U.S. 

According to a statement to the Epoch Times from the office of public affairs for the department’s Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP), the curriculum will teach “techniques to seek support for mental health concerns and skills to advocate for physical, emotional, and sexual health and safety.” 

The program will help incarcerated inmates how to “manage identity concerns during incarceration” and advocate for their “sexual health and safety.” 

The contract also asks the firm to develop a program to help transgender inmates access hormone treatment after they are released.

Less than one percent, or 1,114 inmates of the 158,033 federal inmates under the BOP’s charge, identify as transgender, meaning the Biden administration spent roughly $1,250 on each transgender inmate. 

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Confusion swirls as Colorado imposes new retail delivery fee, catching businesses by surprise

Colorado consumers will start noticing a 27-cent fee on receipts for almost everything that gets delivered to them, including restaurant food, after Colorado’s new “retail delivery fee” took effect July 1.

The fee must be collected and paid to the state by retailers “on all deliveries by motor vehicle to a location in Colorado with at least one item of tangible personal property subject to state sales or use tax,” according to the new law.

The new fee is occurring at a time of record-setting inflation, spiking home prices, and a general sense of how unaffordable living in Colorado has become, particularly in metro Denver. It’s also occurring even as elected officials promise to do everything in their power to lift the economic burden on residents.   

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Biden Commits Another $400 Million Of Your Taxpayer Dollars To Ukraine

The Biden administration has announced another $400 million in military aid to Ukraine, making the total financial assistance more than $63 billion.

This aid package is the 15th presidential drawdown since Russia invaded Ukraine in late February. 

The latest package includes four more Lockheed Martin-created High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, ammunition for them, three tactical vehicles, a thousand rounds of 155 mm artillery ammunition, demolition munitions, counter-battery systems, and spare parts.

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Fueling the Warfare State. America’s $1.4 Trillion “National Security” Budget Makes Us Ever Less Safe

This March, when the Biden administration presented a staggering $813 billion proposal for “national defense,” it was hard to imagine a budget that could go significantly higher or be more generous to the denizens of the military-industrial complex. After all, that request represented far more than peak spending in the Korean or Vietnam War years, and well over $100 billion more than at the height of the Cold War. 

It was, in fact, an astonishing figure by any measure — more than two-and-a-half times what China spends; more, in fact, than (and hold your hats for this one!) the national security budgets of the next nine countries, including China and Russia, combined. And yet the weapons industry and hawks in Congress are now demanding that even more be spent.

In recent National Defense Authorization Act proposals, which always set a marker for what Congress is willing to fork over to the Pentagon, the Senate and House Armed Services Committees both voted to increase the 2023 budget yet again — by $45 billion in the case of the Senate and $37 billion for the House. The final figure won’t be determined until later this year, but Congress is likely to add tens of billions of dollars more than even the Biden administration wanted to what will most likely be a record for the Pentagon’s already bloated budget.

This lust for yet more weapons spending is especially misguided at a time when a never-ending pandemic, growing heat waves and other depredations of climate change, and racial and economic injustice are devastating the lives of millions of Americans.  Make no mistake about it: the greatest risks to our safety and our future are non-military in nature, with the exception, of course, of the threat of nuclear war, which could increase if the current budget goes through as planned.

But as TomDispatch readers know, the Pentagon is just one element in an ever more costly American national security state.  Adding other military, intelligence, and internal-security expenditures to the Pentagon’s budget brings the total upcoming “national security” budget to a mind-boggling $1.4 trillion. And note that, in June 2021, the last time my colleague Mandy Smithberger and I added up such costs to the taxpayer, that figure was almost $1.3 trillion, so the trend is obvious.

To understand how these vast sums are spent year after year, let’s take a quick tour of America’s national security budget, top to bottom.

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