Whenever someone wants to start a war, nobody ever asks how we are going to pay for it. But when there is a proposal to help people with basic human needs, suddenly the budget becomes a top consideration.
If Medicare-for-All Were a War, No One Would Ask: How Do We Pay It?
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Ted, you’ve just solved the problem ! Don’t call it «Medicare», call it «Mediwar» – the US House of Representatives will be falling all over itself in the rush to finance it, the Senate will agree, and the president will sign the bill as soon as it crosses his desk. Why didn’t anyone think of this before – pure genius !… 🙂
Henri
Sometimes I wish Ted was making this stuff up, but he’s dead on about how we prioritize. A mid-level sales manager at a defense contractor where I worked once said, “We could cut our cost to the Navy in half on this weapon system and still make a hefty profit.” I was stunned. Who did he think we were screwing over? The department head was a retired Pentagon Colonel, so no way he was going to upset his double-dip pension scheme. It’s a racket where the mobsters own all the cops and politicians.
When the security (social, medical, economic, etc.) of the people is at risk money must be set aside IN ADVANCE and if not, the security of the people must (so it is said and believed by the many) be foregone.
However, since we are perpetually a warring nation, should not ALL people live impoverished so that the next war of choice will not bring an “unanticipated” debt? Must the security of the People be sacrificed for the security of the Corporate State?
We the People need to institute and celebrate the Oppenheimer Peace Prize.
The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded in honor of dynamite making war unthinkable. Nobel, however, underestimated the cruelty that could still be celebrated with the use of his invention.
The atomic bomb has moved all who would orchestrate (the theater of) war to the front lines of World War III, leaving its survivors, if any, to live to regret their survival.
Therefore, History will not record a Third World War, for either it will not occur, or there will be no one or nothing worth left to record, or to do the recording but sedimentary layers where people once lived.
It’s even worse. The Federal government is the creator of currency. It makes as much as it wants, any time it needs it. Witness the recent (2007-8) bailout of the financial sector in which our central bank extended $16-$29 trillion in credit to the financial sector. (not to mention the $7 trillion those illegal wars in the Middle East cost)…
So, never mind the absurdity of the question “How will we pay for something that’s half as expensive as what we’re already spending?”… sovereign, fiat currency creators (with floating exchange rates) can *never* be involuntarily insolvent. They will no more run out of money than the scorekeeper at the ballgame will run out of points, or the Bureau of Weights and measures will run out of inches.
Nevertheless, we always hear the cry “Eek! We’re out of money” whenever something directly benefiting the population is proposed. (See https://itssimplerthanitlooks.blogspot.com/2018/01/4-real-enemy-austerity.html)
It IS just as simple as you say it is, Adam.
The hard part is overcoming the criminal minds that run this circus, and the dupes who have faith in these self-proclaimed “Masters of the Universe”.
A new understanding will come into its own, as it is said, only one funeral at a time.
I was first introduced to these ideas by the late Steven Zarlinga.
He and I parted company shortly before he died.
He thought the change could come through elections, whereas I held that the change would be bloodier than the American Revolution and the Civil War combined.
There are too many people invested in the continuation of the status quo, and among them are the most ruthless and violent. It would be a “War to end all Wars, Part Two”, and we all know how that played out.
I wonder what would happen if when a war was declared, by default, the government was given carte blanche to confiscate labor and materiel for the war effort.
I mean, what company wouldn’t want to help the war effort? I’d make it treason to refuse.
Next war, let’s be sure Halliburton, Amazon, Boeing, Lockheed-Martin, Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, and all the other companies are ordered to produce various qualities of things, as required by the government, for free. And as the government is demanding free stuff, it’s only fair that all the politicians lead the charge by transferring all their wealth and sign over their paychecks until the national crisis is over. The billionaires, as well, will be required to help bridge the crisis. What can they do? Well, let’s start by hanging them, one by one, from the neck, until they’re dead. I don’t know that this will lead to a faster resolution of the war, but maybe it will. Let’s try it and see. If I’m wrong, well, I owe them all a Coke.
Im the case above, Alex, I suggest the billionaires can feel quite secure, after all, the US hasn’t declared war since 5 June 1942. On the other hand, were you to extend that proposition to include situations in which the US has attacked other countries without issuing a formal declaration of war, then they might have reason to feel nervous…. 😉
Henri