I gather we finally have a defense budget in place and it runs through September 2019 (there is no requirement to pass a budget for only one year). It is an $80 billion boost above spending caps for this year and $85 billion above spending caps for FY2019. This is a total of $165 billion above spending caps. The U.S. defense budget was already at least $35 billion over the spending cap. The budget request for FY2107 was initially $583 billion. I gather the budget for FY2018 is the BCA Budget Cap figure of $549 + $80 = $629 billion. Don’t quote me on this.
See:
- https://www.yahoo.com/news/fiscal-hawk-paul-delays-senate-vote-budget-deal-002451918–business.html
- https://www.yahoo.com/news/congress-passes-massive-spending-deal-103529004.html
I did note that Senator Rand Paul in his brief filibuster speech last night said that we were involved in seven wars. Of the top of my head, I only count six:
- Afghanistan
- Iraq
- Syria
- Libya
- Somalia
- “Trans-Sahara” (Mali and Niger)
Makes me wonder which war I am missing (perhaps he is counting Yemen).
Also of note was that we ended up halting a battalion-sized attack in Syria by the Syrian government. See: http://www.businessinsider.com/us-syria-killed-100-russian-syrian-backed-fighters-2018-2
A few highlights:
- More than 100 Syrian soldiers are claimed to have been killed.
- Syrians claim they lost 7 killed and 27 injured.
- One SDF (Syrian Democratic Forces) member was injured.
- The Syrian attack included 122mm Howitzers, multiple launch rocket systems, T-55 and T-72 tanks.
- U.S. responded with Air Force AC-130 gunships, F-15s, F-22s, Army Apache gunships, Marine Corps artillery, HIMARS (our Katusha) and MQ-9 drones.