Guns vs Butter

Pierre Tristam at Candide's Notebooks:

Year after year we hear that federal programs like Social Security and Medicare are heading for bankruptcy. We never hear about the Pentagon heading for bankruptcy. Yet the military budget increased 67 percent in the last five years, a rate by far exceeding that projected for any of the country’s social programs in their costliest coming years. Military spending last year, at $494 billion, exceeded combined Medicare and Social Security spending by $16 billion. The presumption is that social programs can and must be cut back if the nation is to survive, but military spending cannot be: Defense is indispensable if we’re to have something left to live for.

We have it backward. Military spending as a share of gross national purpose is driving us to bankruptcy in every way — economic, social, moral — faster than Social Security or Medicare could, regardless of how “burdensome” the Baby Boom generation will be on those programs.

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A strong defense is absolutely necessary, too. But every dollar spent on defense isn’t inherently a defensive dollar. The kind of military spending we are opting for is an investment in defeat. Billions are wasted on weapons programs — the missile shield, the F-22 fighter jet — that only grease up corporate dividends and illusions of security. Hundreds of billions of dollars spent on a fraud of a war are fueling our enemies, wrecking our one-time strategic advantages abroad, weakening the “homeland” and inviting future ruin. In exchange for what, when the nation’s priorities are going the way of its moral sense? If we’re to have something left to live for, recognizing the engines of demolition for what they are, at home and abroad, would be a start.