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Trump Signs Defense Bill With Watered-Down ZTE Sanctions (cnet.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNET: President Donald Trump on Monday signed a $716 billion defense policy bill that weakened efforts to punish Chinese telecom giant ZTE for violating trade laws. The bill, named for ailing Arizona Sen. John McCain, prohibits the U.S. government and its contractors from buying certain telecommunications and video surveillance equipment from ZTE, Huawei and a handful of other Chinese communications companies. The ban covers components and services deemed "essential" or "critical" to any government system. Some lawmakers had hoped to use the bill to reinstate tough penalties against ZTE, but the compromise bill removed a provision that would undo a deal the Commerce Department struck in June for ZTE to pay a $1 billion penalty to resume business with U.S. suppliers. But lawmakers agreed to abandon that effort in late July. Huawei called the inclusion of its products in the bill "ineffective, misguided and unconstitutional." They added: "It does nothing to identify real security risks or improve supply chain security, and will only serve to stifle innovation while increasing internet costs for U.S. consumers and businesses. We believe that the American people deserve equal access to the best possible connections and smart device options, and will keep working to make this happen."
"Congress approved $1.56 billion for three littoral combat ships, even though the Navy only requested one."
Classic. That is when I hear the word "Conservative" or "Progressive" in relation to politics, I always laugh.
Conservative is a hilarious name if you think of it in terms of conservation of resources, but if you think of it in terms of conservation of white power it makes perfect[ly horrible] sense. Progressives are not in charge of government at the moment, so I'm not sure what that particular label has to do with this announcement. Could you enlighten us?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
SS is self-sufficient. It is not adding to any deficit.
SS is being gutted to try and pay for that 16% of defense.
Stop passing around stupid information.
This is like if you had two businesses, one was a great success, the other failing slowly. As the failing business continues to fail, you start taking money from your successful business to help run things in your failing business.
Eventually your failing business brings them both down.
All because you were a greedy little fuck. (This is directed to the politicians who keep trying to take OUR money)
Considering defense is barely 16% of Fed spending, and social programs (SS, medicare, etc) is around 57%, I think I know where we should really start cutting.
Yep, Defense.
Oh you meant we should take away health care from our elderly and poor to fund a needlessly oversized military? That's weapons grade stupid. Cutting military spending is the biggest no brainer ever. We could cut the deficit in half tomorrow and still spend more on our military than every other country on earth. Social security is self sustaining and does not affect the federal deficit. We need to cut defense spending to more reasonable levels and raise taxes to cover the rest. No this would not result in fiscal Armageddon. The only other option is to cut medicare and medicaid and cutting that would be stupid and hurt a lot of people needlessly. The rest of the federal budget is inconsequential as far as the deficit goes so any debate about the deficit that doesn't involve some combination of raising taxes, cutting the military and/or cutting medicare/medicaid is a waste of time.