We spend about half a trillion dollars on the Pentagon per year now. That's a lot of money. Actually, I really can't imagine that much money. It is such a large figure that I really can't wrap my head around it. And I'm a biologist. I deal with cultures that probably have trillions of E. coli cells churning out my mutant tropomyosin.
I wonder how that money could be better spent. Now, I know that we need to have some level of military spending. We have bases everywhere to maintain and all that, but I'm sure that much of that money is being spent poorly. Imagine if a tenth of that budget went to housing the homeless, though. Or even a tax cut for the middle class. All said, I think that we spend way too much money on our military, but how do we frame such a point of view? Can we? Should we?
I've been reading Thomas Paine's "The Rights of Man." He's pretty critical of government spending and taxation. I'm sure that a libertarian finds a lot to agree with in this pamphlett. However, even if the Republicans did limit their insane deficit spending, Thomas Paine would consider them nuts. Why? Well, Mr. Paine talks about the monarchal governments spending all of that money on extravagance and the military. In his opinion, the old governments were really nothing more than raiders and thieves feeding off of each other's and their own people through warfare. So, basically, we have one of our founding idea-men with useful words to say on our behalf.
In my opinion, one of our most underrated presidents was Eisenhower. Aside from the segregation issue, I think that he did a pretty good job, and I think that he tried to do some good things that never came to be. He is famous for his warnings about the "military-industrial complex." I remember watching footage of him talking about how we should be spending less money on the military. He was talking about how we could build schools instead of bombers and hospitals instead of destroyers. Even though his insight about the military-industrial complex has not been forgotten, it seems to be ineffective in getting people to find our military budget over-inflated. (There are some other reasons that I like Ike, but they aren't relevant to this topic.)
I'm worried about the Democrats on this issue these days, though. They rightly point out that our troops and veterans do not have adequate health coverage and pay. At the same time, they voice concern about the problematic military budget. While ultimately there is no true disconnect, the public perceives a contradiction. The message is not being communicated.
How can it be communicated? I gave some examples of historical figures who resisted spending, but it's probably over the public's head for the most part. (I suspect that a sizeable number don't recognize either name.) Can we talk about corruption? People tend to think of our military leaders as upstanding moral people. I know that in reality civilians often make the decisions about the things that get corrupted, but I doubt that most people know it. Can we talk about how money dumped into a bomb essentially goes up in smoke? I think that this point of view has truth, but most people will know that those bombs affect things when they explode, and they hope that the effect is their ultimate safety.
I'm asking, because I don't know. How can this extremely important issue be framed? Should we bother?