Unaudited Power: The Military Budget Nobody Controls
The U.S. federal debt has now passed $37 trillion and is growing at the rate of $1 trillion every five months. Interest on the debt exceeds $1 trillion annually, second only to Social Security in the federal budget. The military outlay is also close to $1 trillion, consuming nearly half of the discretionary budget.
As a sovereign nation, the United States could avoid debt altogether by simply paying for the budget deficit with Treasury-issued “Greenbacks,” as Abraham Lincoln’s government did. But I have written on that before (see here and here), so this article will focus on that other elephant in the room, the Department of Defense.
Under the Constitution, the military budget should not be paid at all, because the Pentagon has never passed an audit. Expenditures of public funds without a public accounting violate Article 1, Section 9, Clause 7of the Constitution, which provides:
No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law; and a regular Statement and Account of the Receipts and Expenditures of all public Money shall be published from time to time.
The Pentagon failed its seventh financial audit in 2024, with 63% of its $4.1 trillion in assets—approximately $2.58 trillion—untracked. From 1998 to 2015, it failed to account for $21 trillion in spending.
As concerning today as the financial burden is the wielding of secret power. Continue reading here.
The "Great Reset" was unleashed when it was because the Yellow Vests were *winning*. Yes, it was prepared over many years, but they unleashed it ahead of schedule, because they *had to*. Their financial world was falling apart because of years of consolidation and financialization and the mountain of derivatives was threatening to detonate. Their inevitable financial collapse was imminent.
Then they managed to jury rig the economy with "going direct" bail outs for banksters and keeping people quiet with "Covid", but it was rushed out of necessity.
They won't be able to stop the next one. They are just one or two black swans away from having the sovereign immunities removed from their international organizations like the Bank for International Settlements and the UN, then they will be fully exposed.
Next year is our 250th anniversary. Thomas Jefferson who was there at the start predicted we might last 260 years. But our decline started at 911 and is racing ahead. Even if we stopped pouring money in to the military, we have 65% --no it is not 41%-- who are obese and the fastest "growing " segment is the MORBIDLY obese. The NEW Netflix show about the Biggest Loser TV show is #2. People watch so they fell better about their obesity or they figure everyone is so who cares. So we are cooked and done. At 84 when everyone I knew was the Greatest Generation, I see a nation of fat vulgar phonies.