The ranking Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee is saying that President Donald Trump’s increased military budget will not actually improve national security, despite the massive increases in defense spending.
“Right now, the Trump administration apparently has one and only one approach, and that is to try to present the world with the most massive military he can possibly and hyperbolically describe as a deterrent to their bad actions,” Representative Adam Smith said in an interview.
“I am aware of the threats — as aware as anybody — but there is a finite amount of money out there and they seem to be pretending that there’s not.”
The Hill reports that Smith said the administration should instead focus on building diplomatic partnerships with other nations that have similar interests as the U.S. in order to work with countries like China, Iran, North Korea and Russia to reduce threats.
Smith also criticized Trump and his administration for “diving into a nuclear arms race with Russia and China.”
“The amount of money that we’re proposing to spend on nukes, I think, is both excessive and the wrong policy, without question,” Smith said.
Later, the Democrat expressed his worries that Trump’s budget in combination with his tax-reform and the $300 billion for internal spending will contribute to the nation’s deficit which might result in an economic catastrophe.
“Let’s just say we are spending vastly more money than we’re taking in and that has very bad implications in terms of being able to function properly,” Smith said. “There are some other areas where I think we could save money and be more realistic about it. The numbers simply don’t add up.”
Last week, the $716 billion defense budget for fiscal 2019 was presented by President Trump.
According to The Hill, the budget includes $686 billion for the Pentagon, split between $617 billion for the base budget and $69 billion for a war fund known as the Overseas Contingency Operations account. This means 25,900 troops will be added to the ranks, 24,100 of which would be active duty. That would be split between 11,500 active-duty soldiers, 7,500 active-duty sailors, 1,000 active-duty Marines and 4,000 active-duty airmen.
Additionally, 77 more F-35 Joint Strike Fighters will be bought, as well as 24 F/A-18 Super Hornet fighter jets and 10 new Navy ships.
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