As a nation, the time is long overdue for fundamental changes to our national priorities
Often enough I hear people say that it’s good to spend that much on our military. “That way no one will mess with us.” That logic hurts my brain. We spend more than the next TEN countries combined. We could halve our budget and still have a ridiculously large military.
We argue about the cost of a stadium (rightfully), then pay them off for 25+ years, and those cost ONE billion (versus $880 billion). An annual per Capita hit of $2,200 is crazy.
Also, we don’t even use a significant portion of the equipment that we build. There are thousands of tanks just collecting dust. “But they create jobs.” Build something else. Schools, parks, trains, housing, etc.
“But they create jobs.” Build something else. Schools, parks, trains, housing, etc.
I’ll never get the jobs argument.
Our infrastructure, healthcare, education, housing and about a thousand other things are fucked and would create jobs if we pumped 100s of billions of dollars into solving them.
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some 50 miles of concrete highway. We pay for a single fighter plane with a half million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people. This, I repeat, is the best way of life to be found on the road the world has been taking. This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.
- President Eisenhower
Problem is, the military DOES create jobs. And you missed the part where that same military budget pumps money not only into the general economy, but more so local economies. We often see these expenditures as waste, but that money comes back around. Well, after the top dogs skim their pieces.
From a regional point of view, yanking military bases around here would create a blast crater of nuclear proportions. From a personal point of view, there are plenty of high-paying IT jobs around here, all military. Yank those? Do you imagine those same people could just go work IT in an elementary school or train depot? (Disclaimer: I’m in IT, private enterprise, but I see the jobs, know how the industry works.) Sure, lots of IT is WFH, like me, but much requires boots on the ground.
So how do we dial this back? I haven’t a clue. Democrats are already perceived as weak on defense, and a Republican reformer would get primaried. You want to run for office on the promise of cutting military spending? Keep in mind, you generally have to work your way up the food chain from local -> state -> federal. Gonna tell these locals you intend to kill their livelihood?
Here’s where you say, “Put that money into sane projects like schools, parks, trains, housing, etc.!” How to you propose talking voters out of giving up a sure thing, a thing their economy and workers have been geared to for decades, for a nebulous future? FFS, we can’t get conservatives to agree that education, or any of those items, are GOOD things. Even if we ALL agreed to go for it, these things take time, and meanwhile people are unemployed.
Only thing I got is to attack it from a waste point of view. But even that tack can fail! Had a client tell me one time that every cut to the military cuts from the private troops, while the generals (and contractors!) continue to live high on the hog. Kinda hard to argue that one.
I don’t know if, or where, you work, but if I came into your hypothetical business and said, “We’re making cuts so we can have a healthier company! We’re going to invest in the future!” Do you think those cuts would come from executive pay, or would you suddenly have to requisition staples, in triplicate? Probably get laid off.
Fuck it. I’m old and cynical, but I’m open to ideas.
As a veteran of three wars who is currently on food stamps and under poverty wage because disability doesn’t pay the bills, I agree with you. I witnessed those bloated budgets throughout my career. It’s free money and it’s a way to funnel it to large corporations. The military takes that money and then “spends” it, paying large corporations for their jets and such. Jets that they don’t need. This is all a method to keep money going to the upper class. This is the machine that Eisenhower warned us about.
The only companies who survival I care about are those who pay their employees a thriving wage. Everything else can burn.
thriving wage
New term unlocked, love it.
If we don’t have unlimited, untraceable budgets, how are we going to secretly overthrow governments, and instill our control? Or pay off officials to look the other way. Or bribe politicians to keep the corporate socialism for the Boeings and Raytheons of the world? Why won’t you think of the rich guys? God.
Julius Levinson in Independence Day : “You don’t actually think they spend $20,000 on a hammer, $30,000 on a toilet seat, do you?”
Bernie is correct as usual. ✊
i would have absolutely agreed before the 2022-02-24
but looking at Russia and China today, the Budget was never so justified since the fall of the Soviet UnionDon’t forget the war on terror in-between… we always find reasons to justify our war machines, it’s a feature not a bug.
He’s right. Spending priorities are wrong.
Audit the Pentagon! Where is our money going and what is it being used on?
They have failed audits, multiple times.
A ‘mere’ 600 or 700 billion would be enough. Back in the Obama years we were considering a reduction to ‘only’ 540 billion. :o
Not exactly a surprising position from him.
If you spent $1 million a day since 0AD, you would not have spent $886 billion yet.
Bernie is the man, we need to decrease funding from the military, and focus on our problems in the usa
So, virtue signaling is what this is? Practically the definition of it?
