The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age
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    Attack on ISIS (Watch Your Wallet)

    By Michael Maiello on Thu, 09/11/2014 - 11:13am | Politics

    As I somewhat expected, the military hawks have won over American public opinion regarding Syria/Iraq/ISIS, though what they get for that is tempered by Obama's prudence.

    Now that the bombing hawks have taken to the air, the deficit hawks are not far behind.  The Washington Post ran a ridiculous piece by Chuck Lane arguing that too much of the military budget goes towards frivolous things like paying promised medical and retirement benefits to our volunteer protectors.

    Today, Brookings fellow Jason Tama follows up with the argument that we're spending too much on health care and retirement benefits for everybody and not enough on aerial death robots and bunker busting bombs.

    Tama argues that austerity programs in the European Union will make it impossible for our allies to take up the military spending slack if the U.S. can't devote more resources to the largest single line item on its budget.  So, it's austerity for us, not so that we can pay down the debt but that so we can divert more of our borrowings towards the Pentagon.

    This is why we can't have nice things.

    Topics: 
    Politics

    Comments

    ISIS ate my Social Security, Medicare and my VA benefits your Brookings link:

    ... threats like the Islamic State requires a stable and predictable commitment of significant national resources. To that end.....taking strong and balanced action to address the most important long-term national security imperative facing this and future generations: the rising cost of entitlements. If not now, when?

    Brookings the Establishment View:

    Unstable unpredictable Islamists nutcase terrorists in a wildly unstable unpredictable region of the world replete with dissembling corrupt governments, deserve a stable and predictable commitment of significant US national resources.  Retired, sick or disabled Americans do not.....of course.


    by NCD on Thu, 09/11/2014 - 2:20pm

    the Establishment View

    After this recent NYTimes reporting, Brookings could actually be more accurately slurred as sympathetic to the Qatari & UAE view.  (Cavaet: Norway gives them a ton of money, too. I have no idea why the heck that might be, beyond perhaps: it's a strange world.)


    by artappraiser on Fri, 09/12/2014 - 2:50am

    The numbers in the NBC poll still show a substantial dovish streak in the American public. Sixty-seven percent want either less involvement in world affairs or no more involvement than we have now. And only thirty-four percent are willing to send ground troops to the Middle East--somewhat more than I expected, but still a low number.


    by Aaron Carine on Thu, 09/11/2014 - 2:31pm

    War is but another trick in the republican playbook to convince the public the cost for their social safety net would be money better spent on war materials to fight imaginary enemies trying to do us harm.

    The bad thing about " terrorist " is that there are so many of them ... it all depends on who you're gonna make a scapegoat for all your problems. And are are plenty of unwilling volunteers to pick from.


    by Beetlejuice on Thu, 09/11/2014 - 8:35pm

    The air strikes might have been justified if the goal had simply been to save the Yezidis. But the goal is to "defeat ISIS" which will probably mean another war lasting for years, and perhaps the reintroduction of ground troops.

      I think it has been demonstrated that this endless warfare is not a solution to the world's problems.


    by Aaron Carine on Wed, 09/17/2014 - 6:56pm