Yeah, that comment hit me in the nuts too.
The US is about to hit 20 years of the federal minimum wage being $7 an hour and change. 2/3 of the US states still adhere to it as their standard, and several states have laws against local municipalities enacting their own local wage laws.
Meanwhile the war budget (and let’s be honest, calling it a ‘defense’ budget is bullshit) has increased by a few percentage points every single year since 2001.
The poverty here is by design, same as it’s always been.
To be fair, US spending money on weapons isn’t the reason you don’t have the social services the rest of us have.
It’s due to malice and corruption.
Remember, you’re paying (in both Tax contributions AND private insurance) DOUBLE the amount for your not public, not universal healthcare than the rest of us do.
I swear the whole ‘if we didn’t make bombs we could afford healthcare’ and the conservative obverse of ‘if we weren’t paying for NATO we could afford healthcare’ dual shticks are designed to keep you from actually questioning why the hell you’re paying DOUBLE what everyone else does on Healthcare for less service.
It definitely is possible for a country to have expensive explodey toys and proper healthcare, food and housing, if the system was public, with minimal corruption and wealth appropriately taxed to fund it…
I bring up the argument “we could fund x instead of $y on military” because I think it helps give people a sense of the scale of the huge cost of war. Trump is asking for $200 billion from Congress for his Middle East excursion (so far), that amount can more than eliminate hunger and homelessness.
From my POV, the “if we didnt spend so much on military we could have healthcare” argument boils down to someone holding 2 opinions and presenting it as 1.
Opinion 1: War is bad, we should spend less money on the military and stop creating new wars
Opinion 2: Healthcare should be government subsidized (Universal Healthcare). If we are already anti-war, let’s put the savings from not doing war into healthcare.
I understand your point completely though. Most Americans are paying more than their fair share, while the oligarchy clan pays less than one of us at the bottom. We (the 99%) should be able to get healthcare by taxing appropriately and getting rid of the corruption at the top. It shouldnt be tied to military spending.
I think what you’re saying is correct. It “widens the lens” of the issues out to the system being corrupt which is completely true. I dont think most people have faith we can fix the system (at least within the next 2-6 years), so we are coping with smaller thoughts of just having the option to be anti war and pro UHC.
Bless his heart. His self awareness was surgically removed when he was a baby.
No, definitely don’t bless his heart