The U.S. budget has hidden poison pills

“In the past, we wanted to procure 40 F-35s but due to budget constraints we could only afford 20,� Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak told Aviation Week (Nov. 22). “Now the U.S. is offering to give us the additional 20 in exchange for a 90-day freeze on settlements.�

Ninety days. Ninety days that will cost the U.S. taxpayer a little over $2.75 billion. That’s $30.5 million a day. That’s 147 homes a day, or a town the size of Poughkeepsie in 90 days. And when does this have to be paid (obviously paid to the domestic defense industry, meaning U.S. jobs, taxes, etc.)? Sometime around 2019-20.

“But wait, there’s more!� (taking the theme from those ads on TV.) In addition, the United States will pledge, in a presidential letter, to provide Israel with more technology and capability to counter the threat from Iran, veto any anti-Israel resolution in the United Nations or the International Atomic Energy Agency (now there’s a red hot lead for journalists!) as well as sign a defense treaty with Israel even if a peace accord cannot be achieved with the Palestinians.

“And you also get to buy the original 20 F-35s previously agreed, with a price tag of $2.75 billion remember, to be “financed� through U. S. foreign military aid funds!� In other words the U.S. taxpayer will pay for those as well. The word “buy� is really double-speak in government documents.

Now, before any reader assumes this is an aberration brought about by a pro-liberal, pro-Jewish Obama administration, or is solely about Israel, allow me to disabuse you of that notion. The original F-35s were committed under the Bush administration, a practice this administration obviously agrees with.

And if you turn the clock back in successive Democratic and Republican administrations, every single one had similar deals on the table like this with dozens of allies. What, you honestly thought Carter got an accord on the Middle East without handing out sweeteners? Wake up and smell the defense industry coffee.

The point of all this is simple: If these startling facts are being talked about openly and in print (AvWeek Magazine), they represent the tip of an iceberg of entitlements, funding, secret defense deals and taxpayer debt going forward — going way forward. In this one case alone, you can see that our budget, 10 years from now, is already loaded with debt, debt we have not really discussed, approved, voted on (at the polls), nor determined where the heck these funds are coming from.

Everyone talks about the slice of the budget pie that is caused by Social Security and Medicare. First off, Social Security interest was never left to roll over by our government; every drop of interest has been used in the budget for (see above), and so all we’re left with is a bank account with 1950, 1960 and 1970 value dollars to pay 2010 Social Security payments.

If the interest had been left in Social Security, Medicare and Social Security would be funded to the tune of 135 percent through 2050. Politicians, striking debt deals for “peace,â€�  pre-spending your tax dollars, did that, over and over.

Secondly, please consider that the Eisenhower/Kennedy/Johnson/Nixon/Ford/Carter/ etc. administrations built, maintained and fostered this military-industrial complex upon which much of our export and employment is dependant — not to mention balance of power during the Cold War.

However, since the end of the Cold War it has become a beast we need to feed to keep the economy strong — until, that is, the beast feeds on us and our children instead. Maybe, just maybe, it is time to rethink our position as the purveyor of arms for freedom?

Peter Riva, formerly of Amenia Union, lives in New Mexico.