Sen. Bernie Sanders – born-again budget hawk – has announced the Senate Budget Committee will hold a hearing tomorrow on “Waste, Fraud, Cost Overruns, and Auditing at the Pentagon.” “Over the past 20 years, the military industrial complex has spent over $2.6 billion in lobbying and campaign contributions to influence Congress. Currently, the U.S. spends more on our nation’s military than the next nine countries combined and over half of our discretionary spending goes to the Pentagon. Meanwhile, half of our people are struggling paycheck to paycheck, over 40 million Americans are living in poverty, and over 500,000 Americans are homeless including roughly 40,000 veterans.” So says a press release from Sanders’ office. No doubt Pentagon spending could benefit from better oversight. But it is to be wondered whether Sanders will extend this newfound zeal to reducing wanton waste in funding academia, social programs, and the Marianna Trench-like depths of the federal purse in virtually every aspect of American life. Perhaps the Senate Finance Committee Chair has realized the $28 trillion dollar federal debt he and other solons have contrived may be a curse unto the fourth generation? But no – our junior senator reminds us that this is no new thing, after all: he “has for years pressed the Pentagon to get control of waste, fraud and abuse.” Twice in Sanders’ lifetime, the United States military, a mighty capitalist economy, and a united, freedom-loving people stopped state socialism dead in its tracks. These three forces destroyed Hitler’s National Socialism when Sanders was a toddler. It ended the Cold War even as Sanders rose to political power. Today, the confused, tired children of the Greatest Generation are watching Sanders and his fellow socialists do their best to permanently hobble the U.S. military, economy and precious individual freedoms of speech, assembly and bearing firearms. If Sanders & Co. succeed, never again will America have strength to oppose the totalitarian threat – foreign or domestic. See. Judge. Act. – Editor |