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Needed: A Bold Left to Challenge Government Downsizing [View all]
Needed: A Bold Left to Challenge Government Downsizing
2/5/15
Has the American left lost sight of the big picture? While liberals have been fighting line-item battles against the Republican right, government itself has been changing – and slowly disappearing.
Are we winning some battles (not so many, come to think of it) but losing the war?
Discretionary spending has fallen dramatically – too dramatically – in recent decades, primarily as the result of lower, post-Cold War military budgets. But the promised post-Cold War “peace dividend” has failed to materialize. We’ve seen neither better public services nor wider prosperity. The military budget is still bloated, and only the wealthy and corporations are better off than they were four or five decades ago.
We need an active, independent left willing to challenge the push for smaller government. A well-managed government can revitalize the economy, even as it makes our world a better place to live.
Many Americans seem to understand that instinctively. Where, then, is the movement that will make that argument?
Our nation needs a new vision – one that proposes using government resources to meet newer and broader challenges, instead of downsizing them to ease the tax burdens of the wealthy and corporations.
...Non-defense spending has declined too. It’s currently 3.4 percent of GDP. That’s down from its 1965 level of 3.8 percent, and is dramatically lower than its 1980 level of 5.0 percent. Those figures are even more striking when we consider the fact that some forms of military spending are included in the “non-defense” portion of the budget.
The Department of Homeland Security, for example, is considered a “non-defense” expenditure. That’s a military-related “domestic” expense which didn’t even exist in the 20th century. The President has requested approximately $48 billion for the Homeland Security in his new budget, an increase of 9.1 percent.
The proposed $165 billion budget for Veterans’ Affairs isn’t allocated to the Department of Defense, either. Additional defense-related expenditures can be found in other departments, including Energy and Justice.
Strip away all of these miscategorized expenditures and we’re likely to find that our government’s non-military spending – which according to these figures is near its 50-year low – is even lower than the numbers would have us believe.
Following the Money
Where did those savings go? They were, in effect, given to corporations and the wealthy as tax breaks.
http://www.nationofchange.org/2015/02/05/needed-bold-left-challenge-government-downsizing/
2/5/15
Has the American left lost sight of the big picture? While liberals have been fighting line-item battles against the Republican right, government itself has been changing – and slowly disappearing.
Are we winning some battles (not so many, come to think of it) but losing the war?
Discretionary spending has fallen dramatically – too dramatically – in recent decades, primarily as the result of lower, post-Cold War military budgets. But the promised post-Cold War “peace dividend” has failed to materialize. We’ve seen neither better public services nor wider prosperity. The military budget is still bloated, and only the wealthy and corporations are better off than they were four or five decades ago.
We need an active, independent left willing to challenge the push for smaller government. A well-managed government can revitalize the economy, even as it makes our world a better place to live.
Many Americans seem to understand that instinctively. Where, then, is the movement that will make that argument?
Our nation needs a new vision – one that proposes using government resources to meet newer and broader challenges, instead of downsizing them to ease the tax burdens of the wealthy and corporations.
...Non-defense spending has declined too. It’s currently 3.4 percent of GDP. That’s down from its 1965 level of 3.8 percent, and is dramatically lower than its 1980 level of 5.0 percent. Those figures are even more striking when we consider the fact that some forms of military spending are included in the “non-defense” portion of the budget.
The Department of Homeland Security, for example, is considered a “non-defense” expenditure. That’s a military-related “domestic” expense which didn’t even exist in the 20th century. The President has requested approximately $48 billion for the Homeland Security in his new budget, an increase of 9.1 percent.
The proposed $165 billion budget for Veterans’ Affairs isn’t allocated to the Department of Defense, either. Additional defense-related expenditures can be found in other departments, including Energy and Justice.
Strip away all of these miscategorized expenditures and we’re likely to find that our government’s non-military spending – which according to these figures is near its 50-year low – is even lower than the numbers would have us believe.
Following the Money
Where did those savings go? They were, in effect, given to corporations and the wealthy as tax breaks.
http://www.nationofchange.org/2015/02/05/needed-bold-left-challenge-government-downsizing/
Anyone think HRC could lead the way with a new "Bold Left"???
11 replies
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