McConnell says debt limit law underfunds military

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House and Senate Republicans are on a collision course ahead of the government funding debate over Pentagon spending levels and additional Ukraine aid.

Underfunded? The defense budget is threatening to bankrupt us. It's why we don't have money for universal healthcare, free college and real social safety nets. They get do much money that literally pallets of shrink wrapped money goes missing and nobody actually knows where substantial amounts of money goes.

And yet veterans' programs are chronically underfunded.

one wonders, does he eat dead ukr for the big 'project'?
see he says, next year (a programmmed hillary ww3)




old bs and still the same bs

Did he mention anything about under-funding Social Security, scientific research, or housing subsidies?

The debt ceiling is a stupid idea that should be abolished entirely. It artificially restricts US R&D spending and by extension the entire economy.

McConnell is probably right about the military budget being too low, although in peacetime day-to-day military spending shouldn't come out of borrowing (it's fine to borrow for large capital purchases or to fund military research).

Military spending isn't the reason the US doesn't have universal healthcare. Healthcare spending is. You spend more than enough for it. (That being said, one of the big expenses for the US military is paying for health insurance for everyone, so in a sense you could "cut military spending" by replacing that with universal healthcare)

Similarly with college, you could afford free college if you university system was closer to the German system, and community college does go a long way to cutting costs, but as long as you also want something resembling the British system (high participation, fancy campuses hosting teaching and research at the same place) then you probably need graduates to be paying for it. That said, the US student loan system is spectacularly bad all the same.

Broader social security programmes - probably the strongest case. If the US halved its military spending, leaving it at the same per-capita level as Australia, that money could be spent on an extra $1,200 per person in social benefits. Assuming half the population draws none, that goes up to $2,400 per person. But the real thing that stops you from having a Scandinavian-style social democracy is that you don't have Scandinavia-style taxes. Someone earning the equivalent of $6,000 in Sweden pays a higher rate of tax than anyone pays federal income tax in the US.