A Contract For Americans (5/10)

$5,000,000,000,000

That’s Five Trillion Dollars.  That’s what the post 9/11 wars have cost us just through FY 2016 in my original “Contract” post and, with interest on the debt included, we were looking at $8T by 2053 if we don’t change our ways.

We hit $8T a lot sooner than 2053. In fact, we already hit it.

To link it to the previous subject – fixing everything on the list from the American Society of Civil Engineers would cost $2.5T more than we’re planning on spending.  The ASCE is only too happy to list the details here.

You read that right.  For less than half the cost of blowing things up and pissing off people all over the world, we could have more employment, better public facilities, smoother roads, stronger bridges and so much more.

In addition, we need to actually listen to our military leaders sometimes and remember what the military is for.  It’s for defending the country – not a jobs program for defense contractors.  For example, we have to stop buying tanks and other equipment that the armed forces do not want and do not need!

Thankfully, we’ve withdrawn from Afghanistan and Iraq – but we’re still stationing troops all over the world. To be fair, there’s some evidence that there’s value in that. Look at how Russia eyes the Baltics (Lithuania, Latvia & Estonia) who are NATO and EU members – but it’s Ukraine (members of neither) that ends up getting invaded. We have similar tensions with China over Taiwan. It’s hard to know how things would play out – and how much Chinese rhetoric is “just words” since their military could be somewhat hollow in some areas (they build aircraft carriers can’t but train enough pilots for them) while other areas seem pretty meaty.