- Sputnik International, 1920
Americas
Sputnik brings you all the latest breaking stories, expert analysis and videos from North and South America.

Debt Crisis Was Bipartisan Excuse to 'Cut Social Spending,' Not Defense Budget

© AFP 2023 / SAUL LOEBUS President Joe Biden, accompanied by Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy, Republican of California, departs after the annual Friends of Ireland luncheon on St. Patrick's Day at the US Capitol in Washington, DC, on March 17, 2023
US President Joe Biden, accompanied by Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy, Republican of California, departs after the annual Friends of Ireland luncheon on St. Patrick's Day at the US Capitol in Washington, DC, on March 17, 2023 - Sputnik International, 1920, 12.06.2023
Subscribe
The bipartisan deal to end the stalemate over lifting the government borrowing limit included cuts to domestic spending programs but not to the pentagon budget. Dr. Jack Rasmus, professor of economics and politics at St. Mary's College in California, argued that both parties are happy to abandon the poor in the name of arming Ukraine.
Democrats and Republicans have used the recent debt ceiling stand-off as a pretext for cutting social spending while inflating the military budget.
The latest threat of a US Treasury default due to wrangling over the budget between the Democrat-held White House and Republican-controlled Congress has been averted after House of Representatives Speaker Kevin McCarthy and President Joe Biden struck a deal on limited spending cuts.
But economist Dr. Jack Rasmus told Sputnik that poverty alleviation programs were the casualty of that battle, while the Pentagon's budget emerged unscathed and even boosted.

"You've got to understand that both Democrats and Republicans, a majority of them in Congress, liked the debt ceiling situation because it allows them to put pressure on social programs' spending," Rasmus said. "You know, defense spending is never affected by these deals. That always goes through. You can see it in this deal here, 11 percent in the first year increase in the Pentagon budget alone, not the other defense spending."

But the saga and its outcome was nothing new in Washington DC, the academic pointed out.
"You go back to Obama in 2011, last time we had this, and the defense spending increase just blew right through. It had no effect. They only cut a trillion dollars out of social programs spending."
The Treasury Building is viewed in Washington, May 4, 2021.  - Sputnik International, 1920, 07.06.2023
Americas
US 'Borrowing Spree' Expected Post-Debt Ceiling Row
However, the Democratic leadership will be happy as the final budget deal does nothing to rein in their pet project of arming the Kiev regime for a proxy conflict with Russia.

"Biden wants a free hand to continue to give billions every week to finance the Ukraine proxy war, and he's got that free hand now," Rasmus said. "And both sides never even made an effort to do any cuts here on the defense side. So Biden got his blank check for raising Pentagon and war spending and financing Ukraine. And the Republicans got all the rest.

"So Democrats got what they wanted, at least the corporate Democrats running the party. And the Republicans got a you know, a big bite of the apple of cutting social spending," he added. "And they're going to get another bite here when it comes later in the year for passing the budget for the next year."
For more incisive analysis of current affairs, check out our Sputnik News show The Critical Hour.
Newsfeed
0
To participate in the discussion
log in or register
loader
Chats
Заголовок открываемого материала