Ways to Fill a Hole Infested Bucket

Hank Buketsmann, chair of the Whoosh County Conservative Republican Defense Fund (CRSF), is in a celebratory mood that President Joe Biden proposed a $715 billion Pentagon budget for 2022, which represented a 1.6% increase from 2021, the Senate Armed Services Committee added $25 billion to his proposal. This “plus-up,” as it’s called, raised the budget to $740 billion, a 5% increase over the previous year.

And who would he run into, himself being under the cloud of his own happiness, but Price “Pinch” Skrudge, an instructor at Whoosh County Community College. Pinch, however, was under a cloud that could be described as murky.

They never gave up conversing with each other, even though the meetup would pinnacle into a flareup. As usual, meeting at the Whoosh Bar & Darts, they would agree to order the same beers, but that was the only thing where their minds met.

“Prof Pinch,” as Hank always addressed him, “for once, the guys we send to Washington, have used their guts instead of brains… they bettered Biden’s request for Pentagon by a full 5%! China and who all, here we come!”

“Hank, you have only done a quarter inch of your Bud and you are already under the influence. Why upon earth do we need to increase the Pentagon’s pocket money… didn’t a few days ago, they lost the $3 trillion Afghan venture. I was expecting different from our war machine. That’s what defeats often do: They force you to reconsider the destructive tendencies that got you into the hole.”

“Prof Pinch don’t give me such heavy sermonizing. If I was working on Capitol Hill, I would have added 15% to Biden’s demand. Now, you just dropped the word, obliquely though, Afghanistan. Don’t you thank our heroes that for 20 years, they were there, so we could live assured that no terrorist would fly in. You name the reason… here is the clue… it was our nearly ceaseless rise in military spending.

“Prof that’s what I am trying to do at our CRDF… trying to show the good that our military spending does. And here is a fact that we need intense education. Opinion polls conducted before the fall of Kabul, consistently showed that only a minority of Americans think that the U.S. should spend more on its defense — just 26 per cent in a Gallup survey in February. This is not just unhealthy but also precarious.

“America doesn’t need Rep. Barbara Lee [D-Calif., the lone Congress member who voted against the invasion in 2001]. Did you hear her freshest wailing that it is the time to shift our investments away from endless wars and toward addressing human needs?

“Humans and needs… what were we doing for the last two decades there. Didn’t Congress give Biden the $1.75 trillion for his Build Back Better program… Prof I bet, it will go up in food stamps and soup kitchens. What building better will he be doing when China is raising forests of nuclear-capable hypersonic missiles… imagine the catastrophic effects on our training and readiness if we starve our military.”

“Hank but this defense spending is like a bucket punched with holes…”

“Prof Pinch, don’t you know that’s how you maintain the optimal levels in buckets with holes… you keep pouring in to maintain it. And the money we spend on defense raises jobs… like since 2001, our five largest weapons manufacturers have spent more than $1.1 billion lobbying the government — plus they donated to candidates, funded think tanks, paid to generals to sit on their board. Aren’t all these jobs! I say keep pouring to keep seeing the good.

“Any ways, America doesn’t need enemies to spend more on defense, we need to spend on defense to keep our jobs… this is the way to fill a hole infested bucket… maintain the level and spread cheer.”