How Our Trillion-Dollar Empire Is the Cause of Our 'Deficit Problem'

[ProudDad]

We could make the budget deficit disappear and fully fund Social Security and Medicare without raising taxes, if we only outspend our biggest military rival by threefold.

The United States spends more on its military and security services than the rest of the world combined, yet in the midst of a major debate over our fiscal situation, that enormous drain on our national treasure isn't really "on the table" in any serious way. Obama's deficit commission recommended cutting the Pentagon's purse, but the thrust of its focus was on veterans' pensions and health-care -- rather than, say, maintaining costly bases to defend such imperiled allies as Italy and Germany -- and the spending reductions were largely symbolic relative to the level of bloat that plagues our security budget.

http://www.alternet.org/story/149019/how_our_trillion-dollar_empire_is_the_cause_of_our_%27deficit_problem%27

[ProudDad]

1. More

America’s elites have coalesced around the idea that in order to keep our tax rates among the lowest in the wealthy world, we’ll need to swallow some painful “shared sacrifice” (which in Washington usually means working people sacrificing some economic security and the wealthy getting another tax cut). But it’s important to recognize that it’s an ideological choice to view the projected “budget gap” as a structural, economic problem driven primarily by the growth of “entitlements” -- it’s not a belief grounded in objective fact.

Instead of the ubiquitous stories about our "deficit crisis," the media could just as easily frame the country’s fiscal outlook as a problem of out-of-control health care costs fueled by the practices of the private insurance industry. As economist Dean Baker pointed out, “If the United States paid the same amount per person for health care as any of the 35 countries with longer life expectancies, we would be looking at huge budget surpluses for the indefinite future.”

And they could also just as easily report that we face an unsustainably expensive overseas empire problem, made intractable by a deeply entrenched military-industrial-information complex. (The two areas of spending are intertwined -- well over a million Americans have served at least one tour in Iraq and/or Afghanistan, and tens of thousands of them who returned grievously wounded will require costly care for years to come. Economists estimate that even excluding those costs, the tab for the Iraq and Afghanistan operations may come in at $3 trillion dollars.)

[librechik]

2. so true

but how can you stop powerful billionaires who don't want to take a cut in their profits? How can we stop generals who do the bidding of those billionaires and roam far and wide promoting the schemes of their masters? How do we dismantle an empire we don't direct, and many don't even believe exists?

[ProudDad]

6. We could begin adopting the Zapatista model...

And withdraw our consent to be governed by the Empire...

And act locally to secede...

[jwirr]

3. The CIA and Pentagon often release position papers regarding

issues that are outside the military. In example they released papers regarding climate change and oil depletion. Now we need them to be big boys and take a hard look at their own empire building. They need to start by reading Chalmers Johnson's works on empire and follow up with Paul Kennedy's volume on the rise and fall of the 10 greatest empires. They are our greatest threat right now and they need to acknowledge that the military industrial establishment is bringing us down not keeping us safe.

[Gregorian]

4. Military spending: The Biggest Tax of All.

It's a tax.

Swords to plowshares. Bring them home, and rebuild the infrastructure using their help.

[polichick]

5. For those interested in this topic, I highly recommend this book...

DISMANTLING THE EMPIRE: America's Last Best Hope

In it, Chalmers Johnson implores the president to begin dismantling asap.

http://www.amazon.com/Dismantling-Empire-Americas-American-Project/dp/0805093036/

[ProudDad]

7. Good Idea

But spend a little bit more and buy it at your local bookseller... :)