2020 Hindsight

Great news, America! Your government won't be shut down after all!
Maybe you missed that little bit of drama amid the rest of the drama that currently pervades our national scene. Last week, the "president" signed a bill called "the National Defense Authorization Act," and it allows all that money to go to the places where it needs to go. Or where the powers that be insist that they go.
Seven hundred thirty-eight billion dollars will go to "defense." That's how the bill got its name. That was a twenty billion dollar increase over the previous year, but not the seven hundred fifty billion that the "president" wanted. That's nine zeroes, by the way. If accounting is your bag. And if it is, you should know that this  budget accounts for the one trillion, four hundred billion dollars we will lavish upon ourselves in 2020. And if you dig that kind of math, then you have already reckoned that we are spending more than half of our budget on "defense."
Those quotation marks keep showing up because I take issue with the description of jet fighters and machine guns and tanks as "defense." Once again we will be buying replacement bombs and so forth to put in place of those we have not used. Because you never know when you're going to need to blow something up. For defense. On land, sea, air, or space. Space: the final frontier. This new budget officially tags forty million dollars to get Space Force up on its gravity free legs. Another note: this is thirty-two million dollars less than the "president" had asked for, but Death Stars weren't built in a day, were they?
And then there's nearly one and a half billion dollars to build a wall here on earth. The "president" had hoped for five billion, which would have allowed for stereo speakers and shag carpeting, but in these times, tough choices sometimes have to be made.
There were some "wins." There will be an additional one point four billion dollars spent on the upcoming census. Election security got a four hundred twenty-five million dollar bone tossed its way.
And nobody who makes bombs or spaceships will have to go hungry this year.
Yay, America.