Apples and oranges. Our main welfare programs, Medicare and SS, are unsustainable. They represent an unfunded liability of $100 trillion. The Medicare Trust Fund, HI, will be exhausted by 2028 and the SSTF in 2034. By law, benefits must be reduced to revenue received, which will result in a reduction of approximately 20%. I have written about the need to reform these programs many times.
The Medicaid program is out of control along with food stamps. They are rife with fraud and abuse. I have written about that as well.
The US is the world’s biggest debtor nation. We have to borrow the money, currently about $200 billion, to fund the war in Ukraine. Not only are we providing arms and ammunition, we are funding the salaries and pensions of the Ukrainian government. What benefit redounds to the American people?
Endless wars and conflicts from Korea onwards have sapped the blood and treasure of this nation. Literally trillions of dollars have been wasted along with the needless deaths of tens of thousands of Americans. We cannot fund these wars of choice. Our country is in decline. Our crumbling infrastructure is in need of repair. Our country is being flooded with illegal aliens who drain our welfare programs to the detriment of our citizens. The billions being sent to Ukraine would be better spent on our own people.
Eisenhower warned us about the military-industrial complex. Special interests in this country benefit from these endless wars. The American people do not. Death by a thousand cuts continues in Ukraine, a war that has been going on since 2014. As soon as our ignominious defeat in Afghanistan was over, we launched almost immediately into a new war. We simply can’t afford it.
kabar “We have to borrow the money, currently about $200 billion, to fund the war in Ukraine. Not only are we providing arms and ammunition, we are funding the salaries and pensions of the Ukrainian government. What benefit redounds to the American people?”
Firstly - the USA isn’t borrowing money just to fund the war.
Secondly - a lot of that aid is humanitarian, while the military chunk is going to supply the Ukrainians with surplus American weaponry.
What benefit to the American people?
- it’s preventing a wider war
- it’s stopping Putin from getting the nerve to go further - imagine if Hitler had been stopped at Czechoslovakia in 1938
- it’s sending a message to the rest of the world to not try military conquests
I mentioned welfare. You are addressing Medicare and SS.
I referenced welfare, because those people never contributed
a dime to what they are drawing, and able bodied people are
on those programs instead of going out and finding work.
Each year we spend 10x what you are complaining about us
spending on the Ukraine, and payments on Welfare are not
going to help prevent a expansion of Russia across eastern
Europe.
Our Ukraine efforts should make Russia think twice.
If the West had piled on Germany early on in the late 1930s
and early 1940s, it would probably have saved a lot more
problems than we allowed to develop while everyone sat on
their hands.