We recently reported that Navy SEALs have confided that the Navy is so short of combat rifles that the SEALs have been forced to rotate rifles among returning and deploying teams.
On the other end of the financial spectrum, the Obama Administration had just deposited the first installment of a planned $3 Billion into the United Nation’s Green Climate Fund.
At a time when Republican opposition to President Barack Obama’s climate change initiatives is growing, the U.S. government announced Monday that it had deposited $500 million into the United Nations-backed Green Climate Fund (GCF). The payment marks the first tranche of the $3 billion the U.S. pledged for the GCF in 2014.“This grant is the first step toward meeting the president’s commitment of $3bn to the GCF, and shows that the United States stands squarely behind our international climate commitments,” a State Department spokesman said Monday.
Wyoming Sen. John Barrasso slammed the administration’s handover of the monies, asking a State Department official how the “handout to foreign bureaucrats” could be justified at a time when there were “real problems”….such as a shortage of ammunition to troops dealing with Islamic terrorists.
…Barrasso told Deputy Secretary for Management and Resources Heather Higginbottom he viewed the payment to the “new international climate change slush fund” – the first installment of a $3 billion pledge – as both a misuse of taxpayer dollars and a violation of legislation that prohibits federal agencies from spending federal funds in advance or in excess of an appropriation.“It appears to be latest example of the administration going around Congress because the American people don’t really support what the president is doing with this initiative,” he said. ….“There was a debate in Flint the other night and I just think it’s hard to explain to taxpayers in struggling communities across our country – even places like Flint – that the president and this administration is willing to give $500 million as a handout to foreign bureaucrats instead of addressing real problems here at home.”
Barrasso and 36 other GOP senators warned that they would block taxpayer funds for the GCF “until the forthcoming international climate agreement is submitted to the Senate for its constitutional advice and consent.” However, Obama maintains that the agreement reached in Paris does not require additional Senate advise and consent.
I suspect that, ultimately, the entire $3 Billion will be deposited into the UN fund as part of the wealth distribution scheme that is the Paris Climate Agreement.
But, perhaps sensing the mood of the American people as expressed in our primary voting results, our congressional representatives might find a little ink in their own pens and cancel the next installments?
For the time being, goats and yurts for Mongolian herders seem to be a much higher budget priority than guns and ammunition for our troops.
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