LONG TAKE
I will make a wild claim—and please chime in with a disagreement if you want to take yourself out of contention: any one of my readers would have made for a better, smarter, cable news “talking head expert” on Afghanistan in the past couple of weeks.
Man, the drivel that cascaded out of the mouths of all the people, who for many years, sometimes decades, have been cheerleaders for invasion, for war, for Pentagon big budgets in the name of “national security”, for global U.S. “American Exceptionalism”, with nary a moment of doubt or self-reflection, was just epic. Their entire frame of reference, in the blabbering about the Afghanistan withdrawal, was some version of “bad execution”, “poor planning” or “Biden was too stubborn to do something different that would have made withdrawal more successful”.
It would not be that hard, truthfully, to do better—you do not have to be a battlefield expert, or someone with an official diplomatic background or a skilled “evacuation manager” to get to the real lesson of a twenty-year debacle. It fits neatly into the template of virtually every other foreign policy escapade launched by this country over the past half century: invasions/interventions will always be part of the country’s agenda as long as political leaders invent missions (“The War on Terror”) that, at heart, are driven by protecting the interests of big corporations, oiled by corruption (at the very least, campaign-driven donations especially from large defense contractors), and all neatly wrapped up in a sales pitch of “American Exceptionalism”.
What we can see clearly—if one wants to look—is that no lesson has been learned from Afghanistan, and it will not be learned, especially when it comes to the economics of war: As I wrote a couple of weeks ago, we need to be very clear about how the road from Afghanistan leads directly to people in Flint drinking poisoned water.
How can we know for certain that the crystal-clear lessons are being ignored and that it is just a matter of time before a new 20-year war is on the books?
Here you go, today’s example of a system that won’t change and an almost iron-clad guarantee that another Big War is on the horizon:
The House Armed Services Committee on Wednesday voted to endorse a nearly $24 billion increase to the Pentagon budget, delivering another bipartisan rebuke to President Joe Biden’s military spending plan.
The committee voted to boost the budget topline of the annual National Defense Authorization Act in a 42-17 vote during its marathon markup of the military policy legislation. The Senate Armed Services Committee endorsed a similar increase this summer.
The proposal, offered by the committee’s top Republican, Rep. Mike Rogers of Alabama, would pour an extra $23.9 billion into buying more weapons, and boost research and development, construction, and maintenance accounts. If approved, the new topline spending level would be $740 billion.
Fourteen Democrats broke ranks to push the GOP budget proposal over the finish line.
Several Democrats who served in the military or represent military-heavy districts threw their support behind the amendment, including former Navy officer Elaine Luria (D-Va.), former Navy pilot Mikie Sherrill (D-N.J.) and Army veteran Anthony Brown (D-Md.). Rep. Joe Courtney (D-Conn.), who represents a district in Connecticut that builds submarines, also supported the increase. [emphasis added]
Magically, there seems to be no debt problem or deficit problem when it comes to funding the Pentagon. And, sadly, let’s be clear--the president’s budget was not some wholesale attack on the Pentagon. At $715 billion for the Pentagon (and $753 billion overall for “national defense”--which includes money, for example for the Department of Energy which manages nuclear weapons development), it is a staggering amount of money to buy all sorts of defense contractors’ products like 85 F-35 fighter jets, more nuke submarines and missile defense.
This bears repeating every time—the deep corruption in the system (read: campaign contributions) means the Pentagon has a blank check and is not subjected to the same scrutiny by the vast majority of politicians in the same way as a program like the proposed child care provision or parental leave.
Share
The headline of this observation underscored the “economics of war”. So, let’s now turn to that--The National Priorities Project quantified what the economics of war means:
Over the 20 years since 9/11, the U.S. has spent $21 trillion on foreign and domestic militarization.
Of that total, $16 trillion went to the military — including at least $7.2 trillion for military contracts.
Another $3 trillion went to veterans’ programs, $949 billion went to Homeland Security, and $732 billion went to federal law enforcement.
For far less than it spent on militarization since 9/11, the U.S. could reinvest to meet critical challenges that have been neglected for the last 20 years:
$4.5 trillion could fully decarbonize the U.S. electric grid.
$2.3 trillion could create 5 million jobs at $15 per hour with benefits and cost-of-living adjustments for 10 years.
$1.7 trillion could erase student debt.
$449 billion could continue the extended Child Tax Credit for another 10 years.
$200 billion could guarantee free preschool for every 3-and-4-year old for 10 years, and raise teacher pay.
$25 billion could provide COVID vaccines for the populations of low-income countries.
And there’s a graphic to stick in your mind:
This is the debate that we need to have, and the connections that need to be made, which so many of you know, either in the specifics or in your heart. The Afghanistan War is not simply a failure of execution--no more than the Vietnam War and the endless numbers of coups and secret wars were failures of execution.
They were failures of morality and vision and, quite simply, an absence, with exceptions, in the political world of a set of sane priorities--which are very easy to measure in crumbling schools, crushing debt for many families because of a lack of basic things like child care and paid leave and homelessness.
It’s our job to make sure the real crisis, and the enduring connection of economics for the people and war, is not covered up by the superficiality, and ignorance, of the political and media elites.
SHORT TAKES
And this follows neatly from the Economics of War and where’s the dough…As I often say, this country does not have a public SPENDING problem. It has a REVENUE problem mainly because the rich dodge paying their fair share. We all know that.
And I have the receipts to prove it, via a nice tight paper from the Department of Treasury entitled “The Case for a Robust Attack on the Tax Gap”, which tells us this:
Today, the “tax gap”—the difference between taxes that are owed and collected—totals around $600 billion annually and will mean approximately $7 trillion of lost tax revenue over the next decade. The sheer magnitude of lost revenue is striking: it is equal to 3 percent of GDP, or all the income taxes paid by the lowest earning 90 percent of taxpayers.
The tax gap can be a major source of inequity. Today’s tax code contains two sets of rules: one for regular wage and salary workers who report virtually all the income they earn; and another for wealthy taxpayers, who are often able to avoid a large share of the taxes they owe. [emphasis added]
Let’s underscore this for the people in the back: the poorest 90 percent of taxpayers pay income taxes equalling what the richest tax payers don’t pay.
How does this happen? In part:
…Tax evasion is concentrated toward the top of the income distribution because higher-income taxpayers have the ability to tap into the services of accountants and tax preparers who help shield them from bearing their true income tax liability. Because these individuals know enforcement authorities lack the resources needed to pursue them, the consequences of their underpayments are viewed as minor, and so voluntary compliance rates tend to be lower.
In English: the wealthy folks can just run circles around the IRS because they have plenty of money to hire the right people to dodge taxes and they know they won’t be caught and, if by chance they get caught, the price is not high--a calculation regular people just can’t make because, even if they wanted to cheat and dodge, regular people can’t afford scores of tax cheating-enabling lawyers and accountants.
This is what is especially irritating about the foolishness/cravenness of Fifth Columnist Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, who, as I wrote two weeks ago, either don’t understand economics or, worse, do understand economics and don’t care as long as they can give a pass to their wealthy donors.
We. Have. Plenty. Of. Money. To. Do. All. The. Things. Real. People. Need.
Share
Gender bias is huge in Hollywood. And this graphic from Local 871 of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) says it all:
Ah, yes, a four-day work week would be sweet--and would ensure more people get work. And, already a success in Ireland, this is happening across Europe. A few snippets:
Denmark--starting as of September 1st and running over the next two years as an experiment, the Solrød Municipality, south west of Copenhagen, is giving their employees in administration the opportunity to work a four-day week, choosing whether they want to show up at the office, work from home or take a full day off. The only requirement is that they still have a working week of 37 hours. The municipality argues that it will help recruit and retain competent staff. The scheme starts from 1 September and will run over the next two years. The Odsherred Municipality, north west of Copenhagen was first to introduce a shorter working week.
Scotland: 87% of Scottish Government workers support a four-day week, in the wake of one large company, the packaging UPAC Group, moving to a four-day work week in which workers still get full salary and receive full holiday entitlement.
Austria: the major public services union is making the four-day work week a central part of its contract bargaining efforts.
Share
Where should you live? Oxfam says if it’s about workers’ rights—wage policies, workers’ protections and the right to organize a union—that would be Oregon.
Here’s the line-up in one Oxfam visual, with the greener-the-better and as one gets redder…you will see the trend and there is a logic to it, am I right? (be interesting to overlay the below with rates of vaccination and strong mask-wearing mandates):
Share Working Life Newsletter
Leave a comment
Share
