March 28, 2024

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Biden and his war budget

Biden and his war budget

Washington-. United States President Joe Biden today unveiled key budget lines for 2023, highlighting increased amounts for domestic and international security aspects.

“I am asking for one of the largest investments in our national security in history, the money needed to ensure our armed forces remain the best prepared, best trained and equipped in the world,” Biden said, not a nod. For the military sectors but bet on war.

The president proposes increasing the military budget to more than $800 billion annually, citing the Russian invasion of Ukraine as a justification for increased Defense Department spending.

Investments in national security and US action in other territories are priorities in Biden’s 2023 budget draft, but who will be hit hardest, social programs or measures to combat climate change? A question for many

The plan includes six, 900 million dollars for the European Deterrence Initiative and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and funds earmarked to counter Russia’s actions in Ukraine, which contrasts with the inflationary risks knocking on Americans’ door.

He asserts that agencies like the FBI and the Marshal Service will have more resources to combat violent crime, a phenomenon that has become endemic in the country.

“The budget released today sends a clear message that we value financial responsibility and safety at home and around the world,” the president said.

Biden’s spending plan, which touches on the Ukraine crisis, has forgotten something. Ordinary Americans today worry about the war on inflation, “collateral damage,” as strategists in Washington put it.

However, consumer price inflation is now at its highest levels in 30-40 years, according to Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell’s speech, and no worse signs are yet visible, which analysts no doubt say will be a serious hindrance to Democrats’ plans to maintain a majority in Congress in November. .

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The effects of the Covid-19 pandemic and now conflict in Ukraine have sent energy and food prices to record levels, and voters are looking to their wallets rather than foreign policy issues, and less far from their borders.

The war in Ukraine pushed commodity prices to their highest since 1970, sparking a wave of anxiety among American voters.

The price of wheat, for example, has risen by 60 percent since February, and food prices are now higher than they were during the 2008 global food crisis, which pushed 155 million people into extreme poverty worldwide.

Annual consumer price inflation is now 7.9 percent in the US, which would be disastrous for Biden despite the seemingly good results for the US economy by keeping unemployment levels low.

The numbers from the polls should worry the White House. An NBC News poll showed on Sunday that eight out of 10 Americans expressed concern that the war in Ukraine would lead to higher gasoline prices and possibly include nuclear weapons.

Meanwhile, an overwhelming majority said they believed the country was heading in the wrong direction, dismissing the president’s handling of the economy, NBC News reported.

71% of those surveyed think the country is heading in the wrong direction, compared to 22% who think it is heading in the right direction.

So, analysts say, why the war budget?