President Clinton has proposed the largest peacetime military spending increase since the Reagan era. The 2000 budget earmarks $110 billion for attack helicopters, sophisticated new jets, and warships. On the eve of his impeachment, President Clinton bombed Iraq. On the day of Monica Lewinsky’s grand jury testimony, he ordered the attack on the Sudan. Similarly, the $100 billion military increase request comes at a time when Clinton appears at his weakest politically.

The Balanced Budget Act of 1997 requires that any increase in spending be offset by cuts in another part of the budget. Clinton is pushing for the privatization of Social Security, saying we cannot afford it. An appointee on the Federal panel looking at the future of Medicare says new taxes would be required to preserve the program that cares for our nation’s elderly.

Guests:

• Michael Klare, Professor of Peace and World Security Studies at Hampshire College in Massachusetts.
• Phil Berrigan, Plowshares Activist, just finished serving two year sentence, for hammering on an Aegis destroyer, NBC capable (nuclear, biological, chemical) at Bath Ironworks in Maine in February of 1996. He has also damaged an F-15 fighter plane and a B-52 bomber.

Related link:

• Plowshares Receive Prison Sentences