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On April 01 2022 02:20 LegalLord wrote:Show nested quote +On April 01 2022 02:07 NewSunshine wrote:On April 01 2022 01:59 LegalLord wrote:On April 01 2022 01:55 NewSunshine wrote:
Yeah, among other things, I find framing their benefits as free money just to call it bad policy is not a good faith position. I believe the term I used was "economic rent" which is appropriate. Even if they also pay into it, it's almost trivially true that as a class veterans will get more out than they put into the system by virtue of the fact that the taxpayer base is significantly larger than just veterans. You getting free money is not the same as receiving compensation in the form of physiological and psychological care owing to what you experience during military service. I stand by bad faith on your part. Only in how blatant it is in order to prove a point. Ultimately, it's all money given under specific conditions, some conditions of which are more justifiable than others. Very little of the discussion from actual veterans posits the possibility that maybe they shouldn't receive certain services because it's an outsized benefit relative to good policy, or that they should be treated the same as civilians, and the vast majority of the response is emotional. If we had something more blatant, like me receiving free money, the response would be the same but it sounds silly when you would put it exactly the way I put it. Give it some nice cover and bury it under several layers of misdirection (say, by burying it in a "Support the Children Act" but keep it as a rarely-advertised position that doesn't actually contribute to supporting the children), and it'd be the same thing.
I mean, not really. I'm judging the worthiness of spending tax dollars for VA based on what people have to do to be eligible, versus what they receive. From the perspective of what people have to do to receive it, they have definitively done something to deserve it. And you still have yet to prove to my satisfaction that the care they receive is substantially wasteful compared to ordinary healthcare in the US. Compare that to you being on the receiving end of some random government slush fund while sitting on ass is still a ridiculous comparison, and only works under the conceit that veterans don't deserve specialized care as compensation for their service. Which is the vibe I get from you. You can call it whatever you want.
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United Kingdom13775 Posts
On April 01 2022 02:09 ChristianS wrote:
That’s why I explicitly framed it in terms of quality of care, not cost to veterans. If VA was wasting a ton of money and providing poor care, veterans might say “just give me a plan through Anthem or something instead,” but apparently they tend to like the VA standard of care quite a bit.
I mean, you know what'd be better than Anthem? Anthem, except the government pays for some/most/all of the costs associated with Anthem on my behalf (a level of care which, incidentally, would pass as pretty good health insurance by US standards). If the overall cost of care is the same, and you don't have a good way to quantify that it's "better quality," then I wouldn't be particularly enamored by mere sentiment that it's good.
On April 01 2022 02:09 ChristianS wrote:
Surely some economists have done a comparative analysis of what it would cost to insure veterans privately versus the cost of direct care through VA.
Some certainly have done so, yes. There are some conclusions that can be drawn from it, but they're not "VA care is so good that we should do this for everybody" by any stretch.
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LL could you please provide the definition of an economic rent that in your eyes makes VA one? I'm genuinely not seeing the connection here and it bothers me a bit.
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United Kingdom13775 Posts
On April 01 2022 02:26 NewSunshine wrote:Show nested quote +On April 01 2022 02:20 LegalLord wrote:On April 01 2022 02:07 NewSunshine wrote:On April 01 2022 01:59 LegalLord wrote:On April 01 2022 01:55 NewSunshine wrote:
Yeah, among other things, I find framing their benefits as free money just to call it bad policy is not a good faith position. I believe the term I used was "economic rent" which is appropriate. Even if they also pay into it, it's almost trivially true that as a class veterans will get more out than they put into the system by virtue of the fact that the taxpayer base is significantly larger than just veterans. You getting free money is not the same as receiving compensation in the form of physiological and psychological care owing to what you experience during military service. I stand by bad faith on your part. Only in how blatant it is in order to prove a point. Ultimately, it's all money given under specific conditions, some conditions of which are more justifiable than others. Very little of the discussion from actual veterans posits the possibility that maybe they shouldn't receive certain services because it's an outsized benefit relative to good policy, or that they should be treated the same as civilians, and the vast majority of the response is emotional. If we had something more blatant, like me receiving free money, the response would be the same but it sounds silly when you would put it exactly the way I put it. Give it some nice cover and bury it under several layers of misdirection (say, by burying it in a "Support the Children Act" but keep it as a rarely-advertised position that doesn't actually contribute to supporting the children), and it'd be the same thing. I mean, not really. I'm judging the worthiness of spending tax dollars for VA based on what people have to do to be eligible, versus what they receive. From the perspective of what people have to do to receive it, they have definitively done something to deserve it. And you still have yet to prove to my satisfaction that the care they receive is substantially wasteful compared to ordinary healthcare in the US. Compare that to you being on the receiving end of some random government slush fund is still a ridiculous comparison, and only works under the conceit that veterans don't deserve specialized care as compensation for their service. Which is the vibe I get from you.
I mean, this is basically saying "yes, it is rent, but they deserve to receive rent" (and especially more so than some guy on the internet deserves to receive rent). And honestly? That's fine if you call it what it is. Whether or not it's good policy in the sense of if it's a good use of our taxpayer dollars or if it improves our military capability is a different question entirely.
On April 01 2022 02:38 Oukka wrote:
LL could you please provide the definition of an economic rent that in your eyes makes VA one? I'm genuinely not seeing the connection here and it bothers me a bit.
This definition captures the meaning I'm going for:
Economic rent is an amount of money earned that exceeds that which is economically or socially necessary.
The argument is, the government money costs of the VA program are in excess of the benefits that such a program provides for the reasons as laid out over the last however-many pages. Veterans in particular are the ones receiving rent from this program, at least in the most direct sense. Agree or disagree to whatever extent you want with that conclusion.
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There's a big difference between "VA isn't quite good enough to want it for the whole country" and "the VA is a money black hole and needs gutted". We've argued from the start that we should have something better for everybody in Universal Healthcare. I was with you at the start of all this, until you went on this weird as shit anti-VA tirade. Even now, your argument reeks of complete disdain or disregard for veterans, and I'm not on board with that. Take up your anti-waste or anti-war sentiments with the government that runs the show, not the people who sacrifice for it.
E: lol, even now, military spending is only not wasteful to you if it's going directly toward tanks, missiles, and recruitment, to say nothing of the damage you are visiting on your veterans in the process. Yeah, I'm out of this one. This is a joke.
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I don’t get how “rent” can meaningfully apply if veterans are the beneficiaries. If the money is being wasted by VA in a way that doesn’t improve care, they’re not benefiting. If the money is going to their care, they’re just getting the compensation they agreed to when they took the job. If I’m mad my plumber charged me too much to fix my plumbing, it’s not really “rent.” Either I should have shopped around and found a lower price (I suppose charging too much money to gullible customers might technically be “rent” but it’s not especially actionable from a policy perspective); or I’m just wishing the market-clearing price was lower, which is understandable but cannot meaningfully be called “rent.”
Last I checked the government is still spending billions desperate to recruit new soldiers any way they can, so it certainly doesn’t seem like the market indicates soldiers are too well-compensated. So if VA care is part of their compensation, seems like the market doesn’t actually think VA care is “rent.” There could be other rent-seekers in the system (e.g. overpaid VA administrators taking taxpayer money without improving quality of care) but I can’t see how the care recipients can possibly be them.
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United Kingdom13775 Posts
On April 01 2022 03:13 ChristianS wrote:
I don’t get how “rent” can meaningfully apply if veterans are the beneficiaries. If the money is being wasted by VA in a way that doesn’t improve care, they’re not benefiting. If the money is going to their care, they’re just getting the compensation they agreed to when they took the job. If I’m mad my plumber charged me too much to fix my plumbing, it’s not really “rent.” Either I should have shopped around and found a lower price (I suppose charging too much money to gullible customers might technically be “rent” but it’s not especially actionable from a policy perspective); or I’m just wishing the market-clearing price was lower, which is understandable but cannot meaningfully be called “rent.”
Last I checked the government is still spending billions desperate to recruit new soldiers any way they can, so it certainly doesn’t seem like the market indicates soldiers are too well-compensated. So if VA care is part of their compensation, seems like the market doesn’t actually think VA care is “rent.” There could be other rent-seekers in the system (e.g. overpaid VA administrators taking taxpayer money without improving quality of care) but I can’t see how the care recipients can possibly be them.
If money that would have been otherwise paid out of the finances of the veterans' themselves is used to cover care that we for the sake of argument assume to be of equal cost and quality, and there's not some economically/socially necessary reason to do so - that'd be where the rent comes in. The question of "economically and socially necessary" is, of course the key one here, and I suppose at least two elements you could evaluate on that front is:
1. Does this spending support the continuity of the military (by supporting ongoing recruitment)?
2. Does this spending support our desire to feel that we have "done right by" our veterans?
To each their own on how much they want to focus on these; I will definitely care a lot more about (1) and less about (2) than the average person here. For the former, I will offer that if, for example, the military could cut all future VA benefits and offer some cheaper benefit - say, free Ford Maverick upon signing an enlistment contract - and that benefit were such that it were a net zero effect on recruitment (i.e. people valued that new pickup as much as they would value VA benefits). Would that not be a net benefit to (1) and make the relative cost of VA versus the pickup truck an excess expenditure?
And maybe you would say that potential enlistees are not so vain as to be won over by such a cheap trick. Maybe not, but as far as cost-efficiency goes, entitlements in perpetuity don't have a great track record. Pension crises, for example, are a dime a dozen all across the spectrum of various public and private entities that offered them, for a similar reason. In that light, I don't think it'd be fair to say "the market has priced in the VA as necessary" because it's a bad assumption to assume that that's the right place to spend more money in support of military recruitment.
I'm sure there's VA administrators and/or profiteers collecting rent somewhere in the system. But focusing on them would be more consistent with a "eliminate the waste" policy than an "eliminate the VA" one. I'm sure the former would be both uncontroversial and fruitless.
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I mean this isn’t unique to the military. My employer is free to order less generous health plans next year if they want to. There’s nothing in my contract stopping them. If they did, they could try to offset the effect on employee retention/recruitment with cheaper, flashier benefits (we’re making a company Minecraft server! You and your kids can log on any time you want!) because people are irrational and find health plans confusing, so they might not realize they’re getting screwed. And maybe it would work! Maybe employees wouldn’t quit any more frequently, and potential hires would sign just as often!
Would that make me a rent-seeker? If so, anybody whose employer isn’t fucking them on their health plan as much as profitability allows meets your definition of “rent-seeker” and I don’t think it will be a very useful categorization for policy-setting.
Soldiers have an awful job and the pay often sucks. Recruiters are already pulling every Ford Maverick-style trick they can imagine to get people in the door. I don’t know how you look at this system and manage to muster outrage primarily at their health plan being too generous, but I can’t say I’m surprised you aren’t finding a lot of traction with the argument.
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United Kingdom13775 Posts
Certainly not unique to the military! But this topic started with discussing the increase in the military budget, which is going to be about the same as the increase in the budget of the VA alone. Guess we'll see come later in the year what they actually come up with, but if we're complaining about how much we're spending on the military and we're considering to be beyond reproach the one line item that alone accounts for well over half that increase, potentially all of it - is there really anything more to say? Even by the conveniently-excluding-all-inflationary-things price index (CPI), that represents a fairly sizeable inflation-adjusted decrease in our ability to buy all other military items, to include hardware, mercenaries, recruitment, what have you. Based on my personal experience I suspect aerospace-related inflation is probably closer to the 10-15% range since last year.
You really can't have it both ways. You're either okay with the growth of the military budget, or you scrutinize the most important line item leading to the growth of that military budget. True, I won't be finding much traction with that argument, but neither does anyone else with any serious budget cutting proposals. That's how we're at $30.3T in debt and counting.
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On April 01 2022 04:07 LegalLord wrote:Show nested quote +On April 01 2022 03:13 ChristianS wrote:
I don’t get how “rent” can meaningfully apply if veterans are the beneficiaries. If the money is being wasted by VA in a way that doesn’t improve care, they’re not benefiting. If the money is going to their care, they’re just getting the compensation they agreed to when they took the job. If I’m mad my plumber charged me too much to fix my plumbing, it’s not really “rent.” Either I should have shopped around and found a lower price (I suppose charging too much money to gullible customers might technically be “rent” but it’s not especially actionable from a policy perspective); or I’m just wishing the market-clearing price was lower, which is understandable but cannot meaningfully be called “rent.”
Last I checked the government is still spending billions desperate to recruit new soldiers any way they can, so it certainly doesn’t seem like the market indicates soldiers are too well-compensated. So if VA care is part of their compensation, seems like the market doesn’t actually think VA care is “rent.” There could be other rent-seekers in the system (e.g. overpaid VA administrators taking taxpayer money without improving quality of care) but I can’t see how the care recipients can possibly be them. If money that would have been otherwise paid out of the finances of the veterans' themselves is used to cover care that we for the sake of argument assume to be of equal cost and quality, and there's not some economically/socially necessary reason to do so - that'd be where the rent comes in. The question of "economically and socially necessary" is, of course the key one here, and I suppose at least two elements you could evaluate on that front is: 1. Does this spending support the continuity of the military (by supporting ongoing recruitment)? 2. Does this spending support our desire to feel that we have "done right by" our veterans? To each their own on how much they want to focus on these; I will definitely care a lot more about (1) and less about (2) than the average person here. For the former, I will offer that if, for example, the military could cut all future VA benefits and offer some cheaper benefit - say, free Ford Maverick upon signing an enlistment contract - and that benefit were such that it were a net zero effect on recruitment (i.e. people valued that new pickup as much as they would value VA benefits). Would that not be a net benefit to (1) and make the relative cost of VA versus the pickup truck an excess expenditure? And maybe you would say that potential enlistees are not so vain as to be won over by such a cheap trick. Maybe not, but as far as cost-efficiency goes, entitlements in perpetuity don't have a great track record. Pension crises, for example, are a dime a dozen all across the spectrum of various public and private entities that offered them, for a similar reason. In that light, I don't think it'd be fair to say "the market has priced in the VA as necessary" because it's a bad assumption to assume that that's the right place to spend more money in support of military recruitment. I'm sure there's VA administrators and/or profiteers collecting rent somewhere in the system. But focusing on them would be more consistent with a "eliminate the waste" policy than an "eliminate the VA" one. I'm sure the former would be both uncontroversial and fruitless.
First of all thanks for clarifying what you meant by rent here, that was helpful.
The bolded part is where I think you're taking a wrong turn, or at least our interpretations differ.
From the point of view of a random recruit VA may very likely be considered rent, but not because of the reason you say, that they would have paid for comparable treatment themselves, but because they would have joined the military even at lower price (wage/VA/whatever). It's not very meaningful to look at VA as a consumption good, but rather as price of labour. In that world I think it is fairly uncontroversial that for each recruit that would have enlisted without VA or with less VA provided, the amount exceeding their reserve price can be considered rent. And it is likewise uncontroversial that the government (or any other employer) cannot really bargain all the rent away no matter what.
However, the interesting part here is policy, not whether there is some rent or not.
I think your own test number one defeats the whole argument you've been making. Obviously it still could be, as you said yourself, that the VA isn't necessary. I just find that very unlikely, because we would need a really bizarre labour supply for that to be true. Under reasonably standard assumptions we can assume that there is some marginal recruit who wouldn't enlist with any less VA (or other compensation) offered. And we can further assume that there are some amount of other recruits who currently are willing to enlist, but won't enlist if there is no VA at all. From a pure number of recruits sense it could still be that there is enough people willing to enlist even if there is non VA at all and US military can go on doing US military things without spending any tax payer money on VA. People have fairly credibly asserted in this thread (and I have seen those twitch ads/esport sponsorships/other recruitment channels) that US military is already struggling to get enough folk enlisting with the current offer, so I consider it very unlikely that offering no VA would have zero impact on number of recruits.
But even if we accept that the number of people willing to enlist still would exceed the number of people needed, there are consequences. By lowering the compensation you leave those people out of the recruitment pool who found VA just enough to match their reserve price. Who are those folks? Who knows. Maybe they were the laziest, or the greediest. Or maybe they are the ones who can receive highest compensation from elsewhere? That's the other point that goes against your test number one as far as I can see it. I'll admit that this one is more dependent on our assumptions of labour supply and especially distribution of reserve prices and marginal products (or competency or other similar measure), but it won't be uncontroversial to claim that some of the people the military currently hires out of the recruitment pool are not going to be part of the recruitment pool if there was no VA (or there was less VA, or other compensation). What follows from this is that military instead has to hire someone they were less willing to hire before and thus would be in conflict with your test number one. The caveat here is the magnitude of this effects, maybe it is negligible and the second-preference hires are just as good as the missed first-preferences would have been. Or maybe they aren't and then reducing VA would directly affect the 'productivity' of military.
As for replacing VA with another form of pay, say a car to every recruit, or maybe a plastic bucket or a scuba-diving lesson, that is theoretically possible but ignores all the other reasons why VA might be preferred. Disability rehabilitation, therapy, whatever else it covers, tends to be better deal for the society than the alternatives. That is a whole different discussion however.
TL;DR the rent, i.e. overcompensating the inframarginal recruits by excessive VA, is the price that the tax payer has to pay for the marginal recruit. If you take that away you lose some of the recruitment pool. To my understanding it would take fairly uncommon assumptions about labour supply to claim that VA is 'waste' rather than price the government has to pay for current recruitment pool.
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We're $30.3T in debt because the corporations and rich people have bought enough politicians to not get taxed properly anymore. Beacuse the party that preaches "fiscal responsibility" just keeps cutting revenue and increasing costs. Beacuse the same people who told you we should cut the VA told each other that we should cut the IRS's budget even though more IRS budget means more revenue.
Cutting the VA doesn't mean that you suddenly get more money that you're not spending anymore. Forcing veterans to go get private healthcare, because cutting the VA is apparently what we're going to do before UHC, isn't going to make any situation better. Your fantasy that they can all just integrate into the private economy, like they for some reason aren't doing right now, is simply just a fantasy.
Just the idea alone of telling a whole population of military trained individuals to go kick rocks and that we're not going to pay for your healthcare like we said we would is insane. Do you think that they're all going to be just happy with it and not go through a massive period of violence from the people we just trained to kill and psychologically damaged?
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On April 01 2022 05:24 Sermokala wrote:
We're $30.3T in debt because the corporations and rich people have bought enough politicians to not get taxed properly anymore. Beacuse the party that preaches "fiscal responsibility" just keeps cutting revenue and increasing costs. Beacuse the same people who told you we should cut the VA told each other that we should cut the IRS's budget even though more IRS budget means more revenue.
Cutting the VA doesn't mean that you suddenly get more money that you're not spending anymore. Forcing veterans to go get private healthcare, because cutting the VA is apparently what we're going to do before UHC, isn't going to make any situation better. Your fantasy that they can all just integrate into the private economy, like they for some reason aren't doing right now, is simply just a fantasy.
Just the idea alone of telling a whole population of military trained individuals to go kick rocks and that we're not going to pay for your healthcare like we said we would is insane. Do you think that they're all going to be just happy with it and not go through a massive period of violence from the people we just trained to kill and psychologically damaged?
Maybe that's the way GH gets his revolution? I don't think it would get that far, but there will be violence and it won't be pretty. It's a pipedream of the highest order to think that gutting the VA and telling millions of Vets to fuck off isn't going to lead to some unrest.
I forgot to mention, but I think it was said earlier; if you have private health insurance as a Vet and you go to the VA, they ask you if you have private healthcare. They'll take the money from your employer provided insurance and cover anything that they won't. You go to a city hospital and not the VA for an emergency? The VA will cover all it can and then you're stuck with the remaining bills if you don't have insurance.
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Personally I consider serving in the US military less commendable than selling Amway. I'm of the opinion that both should be entitled to the same basic human services that are instead exploited as bait to lure impressionable people to join the US military and often keep them dependent on serving the US imperialist racial capitalist war machine in exchange for said services.
The argument in favor of preserving the VA basically boils down to preventing revolt from people indoctrinated to violently enforce US hegemony by placating them with basic human services many civilians lack due to the inextricably exploitative composition of US hegemony.
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It keeps surprising me that healthcare=health insurance in the US. The only sensible way to run healthcare is paying for it through taxes to give everyone everything they need. Private company can fill out remaining niches.
Relying on private companies for health insurance is an abomination which will add a whole megalayer of unnecessary expenses.
My uncle ran a project in the US to make an incredibly complex algorithm based program for who should go to which hospital if they had what insurance. Imagine if people could just go to the closest public one and never have to worry about any bills! That is Europe for you, if you can, come over.
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On April 01 2022 06:27 GreenHorizons wrote:
Personally I consider serving in the US military less commendable than selling Amway. I'm of the opinion that both should be entitled to the same basic human services that are instead exploited as bait to lure impressionable people to join the US military and often keep them dependent on serving the US imperialist racial capitalist war machine in exchange for said services.
The argument in favor of preserving the VA basically boils down to preventing revolt from people indoctrinated to violently enforce US hegemony by placating them with basic human services many civilians lack due to the inextricably exploitative composition of US hegemony.
Just shut the fuck up man. You speak in terms and realities you have not faced and will never face. Your crusade against the US and everything it stands for is well noted. You add nothing to the argument. You bring nothing new to the table. It's s tired refrain of a song we've all tired of hearing. I lean more toward "By Any Means Necessary" but I can reconcile my dreams and aspirations with reality.
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On April 01 2022 05:03 LegalLord wrote:
Certainly not unique to the military! But this topic started with discussing the increase in the military budget, which is going to be about the same as the increase in the budget of the VA alone. Guess we'll see come later in the year what they actually come up with, but if we're complaining about how much we're spending on the military and we're considering to be beyond reproach the one line item that alone accounts for well over half that increase, potentially all of it - is there really anything more to say? Even by the conveniently-excluding-all-inflationary-things price index (CPI), that represents a fairly sizeable inflation-adjusted decrease in our ability to buy all other military items, to include hardware, mercenaries, recruitment, what have you. Based on my personal experience I suspect aerospace-related inflation is probably closer to the 10-15% range since last year.
You really can't have it both ways. You're either okay with the growth of the military budget, or you scrutinize the most important line item leading to the growth of that military budget. True, I won't be finding much traction with that argument, but neither does anyone else with any serious budget cutting proposals. That's how we're at $30.3T in debt and counting.
I mean if we’re at the point of defining all employees who might not quit if their benefits got slashed as “rent-seekers” I’m not sure we can take for granted that “rent” as defined here is a bad thing. Excess value has to go to someone, I’d rather it go to regular employees rather than getting soaked up more efficiently into corporate coffers.
If the military can spend more of its money on weapons or more of its money on healthcare I really don’t have a problem with the latter. Maybe Raytheon will get a couple fewer contracts to design, I don’t know, cruise missiles that fragment into drones that use AI image processing to identify human targets to hit with hellfire missiles. Meanwhile guys that got recruited out of high school to go get their legs blown off by last generation AI drone missiles will have an easier time booking an appointment because their system is better-funded.
It’s a weird time to talk about military funding because right this moment I think most people on both sides of the political spectrum are pretty happy to spend a little more to send more/better weapons to Ukraine. Tucker Carlson isn’t, I dunno what somebody like GH thinks about it, but most Republicans and Democrats are pretty eager to say “yeah, give them as many guns and bullets as they need to repel the invaders,” and as a consequence it’s a pretty tough moment to make a case for “we should give the military less money.” I’d still like to see the military budget go down but that’s less out of a passion for budget-balancing than it is from a belief that our mass-producing the most heinous weapons we can imagine and shipping them all over the globe tends to make everybody (including Americans!) less safe. Slashing the VA will do nothing to help that.
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On April 01 2022 07:38 JimmiC wrote:Show nested quote +On April 01 2022 06:27 GreenHorizons wrote:
Personally I consider serving in the US military less commendable than selling Amway. I'm of the opinion that both should be entitled to the same basic human services that are instead exploited as bait to lure impressionable people to join the US military and often keep them dependent on serving the US imperialist racial capitalist war machine in exchange for said services.
The argument in favor of preserving the VA basically boils down to preventing revolt from people indoctrinated to violently enforce US hegemony by placating them with basic human services many civilians lack due to the inextricably exploitative composition of US hegemony. What an odd jumble of thoughts and fancy words, while I agree everyone should get healthcare it seems odd, and disrespectful. This to me is a lot like the people who yell at the walmart staff about their company policy.
Indeed, judging the personal choices of others without regard to their circumstances is as easy as it is morally repugnant. I’m not a fan of horseshoe theory but it’s not a coincidence that purity tests can be found in all corners of the spectrum.
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On April 01 2022 06:45 ChristianS wrote:Show nested quote +On April 01 2022 05:03 LegalLord wrote:
Certainly not unique to the military! But this topic started with discussing the increase in the military budget, which is going to be about the same as the increase in the budget of the VA alone. Guess we'll see come later in the year what they actually come up with, but if we're complaining about how much we're spending on the military and we're considering to be beyond reproach the one line item that alone accounts for well over half that increase, potentially all of it - is there really anything more to say? Even by the conveniently-excluding-all-inflationary-things price index (CPI), that represents a fairly sizeable inflation-adjusted decrease in our ability to buy all other military items, to include hardware, mercenaries, recruitment, what have you. Based on my personal experience I suspect aerospace-related inflation is probably closer to the 10-15% range since last year.
You really can't have it both ways. You're either okay with the growth of the military budget, or you scrutinize the most important line item leading to the growth of that military budget. True, I won't be finding much traction with that argument, but neither does anyone else with any serious budget cutting proposals. That's how we're at $30.3T in debt and counting. + Show Spoiler +I mean if we’re at the point of defining all employees who might not quit if their benefits got slashed as “rent-seekers” I’m not sure we can take for granted that “rent” as defined here is a bad thing. Excess value has to go to someone, I’d rather it go to regular employees rather than getting soaked up more efficiently into corporate coffers.
If the military can spend more of its money on weapons or more of its money on healthcare I really don’t have a problem with the latter. Maybe Raytheon will get a couple fewer contracts to design, I don’t know, cruise missiles that fragment into drones that use AI image processing to identify human targets to hit with hellfire missiles. Meanwhile guys that got recruited out of high school to go get their legs blown off by last generation AI drone missiles will have an easier time booking an appointment because their system is better-funded.
It’s a weird time to talk about military funding because right this moment I think most people on both sides of the political spectrum are pretty happy to spend a little more to send more/better weapons to Ukraine. Tucker Carlson isn’t, I dunno what somebody like GH thinks about it, but most Republicans and Democrats are pretty eager to say “yeah, give them as many guns and bullets as they need to repel the invaders,” and as a consequence it’s a pretty tough moment to make a case for “we should give the military less money.” + Show Spoiler +I’d still like to see the military budget go down but that’s less out of a passion for budget-balancing than it is from a belief that our mass-producing the most heinous weapons we can imagine and shipping them all over the globe tends to make everybody (including Americans!) less safe. Slashing the VA will do nothing to help that.
The US has been at war for all but ~20 years of its entire history so it's always "a tough moment" or "not the right time" to impugn the US imperialist racial capitalist war machine.
There is a lot of geopolitical stuff surrounding the conflict in Ukraine so it can't be responsibly reduced to Putin bad = giving Ukraine weapons good.
I will say that the bipartisan support for weapons is representative of a long history of bipartisan backing of the aforementioned war machine and its unabashed mission to violently entrench US hegemony.
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EPT
