"Wouldn't it be wonderful if schools got all the money they needed and the Pentagon had to hold a bake sale to pay for a new bomber."Today Huffington Post's Ryan Grim writes about an article in the Washington Post on the decision facing Obama about continued funding of our nuclear arms program, which was designed to deter a powerful USSR and is no longer needed to balance a much weakened Russia.
Grim's point is that nowhere in the article are words like "cost" or "debt" or "deficit" or "fiscal crisis." We don't talk about whether we can afford weapons.
But in the first sentence of any article about health care reform you're likely to encounter "trillion dollar overhaul," and Republican senators will justify their "no" votes by saying it will wreck our economy.
One reason it is difficult to afford health care for all our citizens is that we are paying so much to keep the military-industrial complex healthy. Not that we should not protect ourselves, but that's not what we're doing when we continue weapons systems that are no longer needed. When conservatives want to "starve the beast" of government so we can't afford social programs, they never consider even putting the weapons industry on a diet.
Priorities. Indeed !!
Ralph
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