In Quick Hits, The Big Hurt calls attention to a question in a 60 Minutes/Vanity Fair poll.
First, from CBS comes a graph of the topline results:
Then, from vanityfair.com comes the breakdown by income:
To balance the federal budget, which of the
following would be the first step you would take?
TOTAL <$50K* $50K-$100K >$100K
Increase taxes on
the wealthy 61% 67% 58% 46%
Cut defense spending 20 20 22 20
Cut Medicare 4 2 5 10
Cut Social Security 3 1 5 6
* Mislabeled >50K in the original.
The results are hardly surprising, as polls have gotten similar results in the past. Indeed, the General Social Survey has long showed that very few people want to cut Medicare or Social Security, while a great number want to increase spending--but this is not the case for military spending. Even after 9/11, most people remained more supportive of Medicare and Social Security spending than they were of military spending. (See tables & charts & brief discussion on the flip.)
But look a little more closely at the internals. Overall, cutting military spending is five times more popular than cutting Medicare. Among those making less than 50K, it's ten times more popular. But among those making over 100K, it's only twice as popular. Once you get into the stratospheric income levels of K-Street lobbyists and others in the influence biz, it's a good bet that the difference vanishes entirely--and that's even before anyone gets paid to advocate for anything.
Some have suggested that Medicare should be means-tested in order to save money. But these polls show that there's already a sharp income-based difference in levels of support as things stand today. Add in means-testing, so that those making over 100K get nothing out of Medicare themselves--or even just substantially less--and the levels of support would certainly erode even further, thus making it even easier for Congress to act against the wishes of the broad majority of the American people.
On the flip: A set of tables & charts, showing just how upside-down the Versailles consensus is from what the American people want.
On July 14th, Green Change announced the campaign for a Green New Deal, a 10-point program to create economic prosperity together with ecological sustainability.
Since then over 100 candidates for elected office at all levels have joined the Green New Deal Coalition.
The Green New Deal Coalition will cut military spending, create millions of green jobs, and revive the economy by protecting the planet we depend on.
Green Change is inviting all candidates, individuals and organizations that support a prosperous, sustainable future for America to endorse the Green New Deal.
To date, 11 candidates for governor, 11 candidates for US Senate, and 33 candidates for US House of Representatives have joined the Green New Deal Coalition.
All agree on the need to cut military spending, fund green public works, ban corporate personhood, pass single-payer health care, restore progressive taxation, ban usury, enact a revenue-neutral carbon tax, legalize marijuana, institute tuition-free public higher education, change trade agreements to improve labor, environmental and safety standards, and pass sweeping electoral, campaign finance and anti-corruption reforms.
These candidates represent a clean break with the failed policies of the past that have led America down the road to economic and ecological disaster.
The Green New Deal promises a brighter tomorrow for America – one that combines the New Deal’s promise of freedom from economic hardship with decisive action to protect our planet.
From a Keynesian standpoint, I believe that with the economy depressed it's better to spend the money in Afghanistan than not to spend it.
There was a whole lot else wrong with that post, I thought. Enough to do a diary about. But before doing that, I just want to take one part of it for a jumping-off point.
Matt begins:
People who believe that the war in Afghanistan is important to the long-term interests of the United States of America are absolutely, unequivocally correct to vote to spend tens of billions of dollars on it notwithstanding the adverse impact that has on the deficit. I think we should be clear about that. If you think this war is important, then you should blow up the deficit to get the job done.
But is war spending really a conservative priority, while domestic spending is not? Or is this just your normal elite conservative burn-the-house down politics-as-usual? Nearly 30 years of General Social Survey data strongly suggests its the later. Looking only at self-identified conservatives, I took the average of 6 component items from my NatSpend6Sp index:
NATCITY: Solving problems of big cities
NATEDUC: Improving nations education system
NATENVIR: Improving protecting environment
NATFARE: Welfare
NATHEAL: Improving protecting nations health
NATRACE: Improving the conditions of blacks
for those saying we were spending "too little," "too much" or "about right", and subracted the corresponding figures for military spending. Even though this index contains the highly unpopular "welfare" item (which scores far lower than "assistance to the poor", for example), we see that conservatives generlly think we're spending "too little" on domestic programs, rather than defense, As you can see in the chart, the only times this has not been so were the around the late 70s/early 80s when the phony Soviets-are-going-to-kill-us-all scare helped bring Reagan to office, and the early 2000s, when Republicans were pushing a similar theme about Democrats fatally weakening our military:
Note how quickly and dramatically those passing phases melted away. So what's all this about what conservatives believe is important?
President Barack Obama announced on Tuesday that he would be deploying 1,200 National Guard troops to the Mexican border to beef up security along the Río Bravo. This surprise move has garnered criticism from immigrant rights supporters, who argue that it will dehumanize and endanger immigrant and Latino communities.
Can the Republican Party reinvent itself and remain a relevant political force?
I don't think reinventing the Republican Party is a solution. The Republicans have to take responsibility for the mess we're in which began with Ronald Reagan's election and hop scotched from Bush to Bush presidencies leaving the country with a wrecked economy, 2 foreign wars, millions of illegal aliens, and astronomical debt.
New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman wants to empower "radical centrists" to get the federal government's books to balance (among other things). He seems to believe that structural reforms to reduce the power of extreme liberals and conservatives would make budget-balancing possible. He touts nonpartisan redistricting, for example. Washington Post's Ramesh Ponnuru is for nonpartisan redistricting, too, for different reasons than Friedman.
Three things to note: (1) These are percentages, not total goods. The domestic economy is much larger than the military sector. (2) Just look at how recently the military increase really started to spike upwards. (3) The figure in the bottom table are half due to Bush, half to Obama.
As I looked at that graph, and those figures, I began to think, "What if that were spending on green technology instead? After all, global warming is probably the biggest long-term threat there is to our national security. What if we were spending all that money on that in the midst of this economic crisis?"
For those of you who had to cut checks and wait in long lines at the Post Office yesterday, here's a stat to darken your already gloomy week. According to the National Priorities Project (NPP), 37.3 cents of every tax dollar went toward military spending last year. NPP has a site set up where you can actually see the breakdown of where your tax dollars went in 2008, based on your city and county info. For instance, in Philly where I live, the median income family paid $1,958 in federal income taxes last year. Of that, $576 went to military spending and another $155 went to military interest on debt, while education received a paltry $59 and environment, energy and science combined got just $55. Why are these numbers so skewed?
Thankfully, the Obama administration has called for substantial investment in woefully underfunded areas like education, healthcare reform, and renewable energy. And investing in renewable energy will translate into more jobs, even though the NPP notes that 30 percent of military spending currently goes toward securing fossil fuels. Here's the thing though, if our country is simultaneously escalating the war in Afghanistan, calling for a long-term military commitment, how can they possibly deliver on their economic agenda?
When last we met we had a conversation about the challenges the Air Force faces in providing a capable bomber force. We discussed the age of the existing bomber fleet's backbone, the B-52, the limitations of the B-1, and the fact that the B-2s is limited by the age of the aircraft's electronics from participating in the "network-centric warfare" model most appropriate for the 21st Century military.
We also examined the probability that future air-defense systems will likely soon raise the threat level to a point where existing US aircraft will no longer be able to operate safely in the highest threat environments.
So what are we to do?
Today we'll consider several options, including some that change the nature of the heavy bomber fleet in very fundamental ways.
I come today with a message many of you will not want to hear, particularly in a time when we are looking forward to ending a war...and in a time where we are already struggling to provide enough money for military funding, the last thing you want to hear from me is that we need to send a couple hundred billion more to the Air Force-and that we need to do it soon.
Nonetheless, we have a problem we need to fix.
Of course, I hate to present a problem without a solution...and today I have two ideas that can help with the problem-and maybe save the taxpayer a mess of money in the process.
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