Kate Aronoff: Republicans preach fiscal conservatism, yet they always find money for war
A recent study from
Brown University’s Watson Institute found that, since 2001, wars in
Afghanistan, Syria and Pakistan have cost the US $6.4tn – $2tn more than all
federal spending in 2018. The trouble with a prospective new war in Iran, of
course, isn’t that it would cost too much money. It’s that it would put
potentially millions of lives at risk, mostly to appease Donald Trump’s fragile
ego, a coterie of neocons who’ve been edging toward it for years and a slew of
defense contractors eager to cash in. Neither a Green New Deal nor another war
would plummet the US into bankruptcy, a virtual impossibility barring
earth-shattering changes to the make-up global economy. They probably wouldn’t
even raise inflation.
The disconnect between
Republicans’ fiscal conservatism on climate and spendthrift war drums
illustrates a basic fact about American politics: that our budgets are more
than anything expressions of what it is the country chooses to value – not how
much money we have in the bank. The only time costs become an issue is when it
comes to programs that run counter to Republican policy priorities, whether by
making sure that everyone has healthcare or taking on the urgent threat of the
climate crisis, the potential real costs of which are virtually exponential. In office, Republicans
have been prolific deficit spenders, from supposed small-government
ideologue Ronald
Reagan to George W Bush to Trump, who pushed through $2tn worth of tax
cuts for the wealthy...
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jan/07/republicans-climate-crisis-wars-spending