According to the National Alliance to End Homelessness, there are around 40,000 homeless military veterans in the wealthiest country in the world. On Tuesday, House Republicans introduced a bill that would add $15 million to fund…Trump’s Space Force.
Trump says he’s directing Pentagon to create a new ‘Space Force’ https://t.co/wjNwQZZNti
— chris ironcloud (@breezentin) May 14, 2019
Rep. Mike Waltz (R-FL) introduced the bill at a meeting of the House Armed Services Committee. In what sounded more like an episode of Star Wars than a congressional committee hearing, Waltz said that what American tax dollars should be paying for wasn’t food for the hungry, medicine for the sick, or shelter for the homeless. Instead, it should be spent on a “space command as a unified combatant command” of the United States.
‘Today at a House Armed Services Committee hearing on the Air Force budget, Representative Michael Waltz (FL-R) announced new legislation directing President Donald Trump and the Department of Defense to establish the United States Space Command as a unified combatant command and repeal a conflicting directive in law for a subordinate command.’
President Trump says the upcoming budget will "invest in a space-based missile defense layer."
"We will recognize that space is a new war fighting domain, with the Space Force leading the way," he adds https://t.co/6mnazZ9NFn pic.twitter.com/M2n1AH7cbz
— ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) January 17, 2019
During previous meetings, other members of the “fiscally responsible party” indicated their reluctance to sign on to this spending initiative. Many of them, like most sane people, didn’t seem to understand what a space force would do, especially for a country that already has a NASA program and an Air Force.
‘Sen. James M. Inhofe (R-Okla.), the Republican committee chairman, asked a question heard throughout the more-than-two-hour hearing: “What will [this] organization fix?”’
The Pentagon has sent a legislative proposal to Congress calling for the establishment of a Space Force within the United States military, a top defense priority for the Trump administration, senior defense officials say https://t.co/cKqauRcGEr
— CNN (@CNN) March 1, 2019
Democrats, sounding more like the fiscally responsible party, were more blunt about the long-term effects of the bill. The most notable effect is the amount of money that it would cost to fulfill Trump’s dream of a space army.
‘Establishing a Space Force, which would be housed inside the Air Force, is expected to cost an estimated $2 billion spread out over five years.’
That amount could equal $50,000 in spending over five years to help each homeless veteran in this country.
The acting defense secretary is making a renewed pitch to Congress for authority to create a Space Force as a separate branch of the military. https://t.co/2ku0qD73Gg pic.twitter.com/4t4Q5UDhNM
— ABC News (@ABC) April 11, 2019
Featured image via Flickr by Gage Skidmore under a Creative Commons license
