The Army, Navy and Air Force are all investing in hypersonic weapons — missiles with conventional explosive warheads that can fly at many times the speed of sound and hit targets at ranges previously only reachable by cruise missiles or nuclear ballistic missiles. In the wake of the United States leaving the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty in August 2019, the Army is continuing the development of artillery rockets capable of ranges previously banned by that agreement.
The Pentagon will be buying 48 more F-35 Joint Strike Fighters for the Air Force, and 37 for the Navy and Marine Corps.
Military personnel will be receiving a 2.7 percent raise, and troop levels will remain relatively flat with slight reductions in all services save for the Air Force, which will increase its ranks by less than one percent.
— John Ismay
A reinvestment in diplomacy, democracy and refugees.
Mr. Biden has stressed the value of restoring American diplomacy and alliances, and his budget requests an increase of $6.3 billion for the State Department and international programs, more than 11 percent above current levels — and almost 50 percent more than the last budget proposed by Mr. Trump, who repeatedly targeted the State Department for cuts.
Prioritizing the threat of the coronavirus, the overall $63.6 billion request includes $1 billion in foreign aid to combat the spread of Covid-19, promote global health security programs and increase research to detect and stop future viral outbreaks.
Programs supporting refugees and conflict victims would also grow: The budget asks for $10 billion in humanitarian assistance for vulnerable people overseas. And it would offer $861 million in assistance to Central American nations to help address the root causes of migration from those countries to America’s southern border.
In response to growing cybersecurity threats and breaches, the budget asks $500 million for the Technology Modernization Fund, $110 million for the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and $750 million “to respond to lessons learned from the SolarWinds incident,” a massive intrusion into federal computer networks attributed to Russia.
— Michael Crowley
Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/28/us/politics/trillion-budget-plan-joe-biden.html
Speak Your Mind
You must be logged in to post a comment.