This is a Political Tidbit dressed in Bayesian clothing.
The Nation has noticed that the President has no clothes -- they've been vaporized by the latest toys coming out of our bloated military-industrial complex. Defense budget for 2008: $700B, the largest % of GDP since WWII.
This might not be bad if, for example, the military industrial complex was simply an excuse to keep middle-American manufacturing jobs afloat for a while longer. The flip side of that is that we should use the products, which, lucky for us, means killing people in places that offer a lower cost of production than we could. But seriously, the real problem in that argument is that the additional money is not going to greater production volume but, instead, to higher prices. Lockhead, Northrup, etc. are simply running over-budget on contracts for the same number of items. The result is the corporation makes more and the American worker sees no additional benefit.
Oh, and I have been saying this for a long time: You know where you can find the money to overhaul this country;'s education, health, and infrastructure? It's being shot out of American-made rifle barrels into the Iraqi sands. Let's bring that money, and the people who can really benefit from it, home.
1 comment:
Um, education is mostly a state/county/local issue, and I'm not aware of a school system in the US which isn't funded by local property taxes.
Regarding infrastructure, most of the problems have to do with lack of local willpower and backbone (c.f. the assorted levee-improvement money which LA and NO had siphoned off into other projects, or take a look at what's going on with the Dulles rail project closer to home - the criticism of WMATA as not being able to manage their existing budget is pointed, but there's a lot of truth there).
The article points out that military expenditures have increased, but doesn't actually discuss some of the reasons (although there's a lot of tinfoil-hat-style accusations). When that fellow from AU says that the price per F-22 has gone up 300%, does he mean since Feb 2007, or does he mean since 1991, when the first planes were ordered? Let's remember that gasoline has gone up more than that much since then...
The health care question I'd ask is this (h/t Coyote):
"Would you favor a universal health care program such that everyone had access to care, but you yourself got worse care than you do today?"
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