(CD) — It was Cyber Monday and the U.S. Navy put in a $22.2 billion order for new nuclear submarines but absolutely no headlines in the United States, pundits on Morning Joe, former presidents, nor elected politicians active on social media have been spotted asking this question in response to the massive purchase: How we gonna pay for it?
According to CNN, the contract issued on Monday is the Navy’s “most expensive shipbuilding contract ever” and was awarded to weapons maker General Dynamics Electric Boat and subcontractors. “The massive contract for nine nuclear-powered, Virginia class attack submarines comes just months after the head of the US Navy in the Pacific warned of a massive Chinese naval buildup and his trouble in getting enough submarines to counter it,” the news oulet reported.
As lawmakers like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and 2020 Democratic candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders have pointed out, the “how we gonna pay for it” question has become a common mantra among the “elite D.C. pundit” class and “deficit scolds” when public benefits like tuition-free higher education, Medicare for All, and paid family are proposed—but rarely if ever deployed against massive military expenditures like the “ultra-costly, underwhelming” F-35 fighter jet, the $6.4 trillion thrown at the endless “war on terrorism,” or these latest Virginia class attack submarines.
“If you’re following the presidential race,” Lindsay Koshgarian, director of the National Priorities Project at the Insitute for Policy Studies, wrote in a column last week, “you’ve heard plenty of sniping about Medicare for All and whether we can afford it. But when it comes to endless war or endless profits for Pentagon contractors, we’re told we simply must afford it—no questions asked.”
Kurgen
Article URL : https://theantimedia.com/media-silent-as-us-navy-places-22-billion-order-for-nuclear-submarines/