Had someone literally try to claim that we have had Democrats in charge for the past 50 years which is so beyond dumb it’s laughable. Since 1969 we have had:
1969-1974: Richard Nixon (Republican)
1974-1977: Gerald Ford (Republican)
1977-1981: Jimmy Carter (Democrat)
1981-1989: Ronald Reagan (Republican)
1989-1993: George H. W. Bush (Republican)
1993-2001- Bill Clinton (Democrat)
2001-2009: George W Bush (Republican)
2009-2017: Barack Obama (Democrat)
2017-2021: Donald Trump (Republican)
2021-now: Joe Biden (Democrat)
Republicans: 32 years
Democrats: 21 years
Republicans have been in power much longer than Democrats and each time Republicans are in power they drive up the debt and Democrats tend to lower the debt.
As you can see, Clinton was the only president in the past 40 years to have had the US in a surplus.
But yes, do tell me how Republicans are SO good for the country and so fiscally responsible.
We were largely able to cut back and get ourselves out of a deficit because we cut back on military spending.
In 2020 $35 TRILLION of Pentagon money was unable to be traced. Medicare for All would have cost $32T. It would also only cost $20 billion to end homelessness in the US and 2.6 trillion to fix US infrastructure. We could have had the money to fix many of our issues had we not funneled it into the military.
The Republican-led House of Representatives used “trickery” when it passed the military spending bill, slipping in $89 billion for an emergency war fund while leaving out an amendment allowing for a debate on war, former Texas Congressman Ron Paul says.
Such “emergency” spending is not included in growth caps placed on the military under the 2011 budget control act, Paul wrote on the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity website. He added the move is a “loophole filled by Congress with fed-printed money.”
“The United States, as the near unanimous vote to provide nearly $40 billion in aid to Ukraine illustrates, is trapped in the death spiral of unchecked militarism. No high speed trains. No universal health care. No viable Covid relief program. No respite from 8.3 percent inflation. No infrastructure programs to repair decaying roads and bridges, which require $41.8 billion to fix the 43,586 structurally deficient bridges, on average 68 years old. No forgiveness of $1.7 trillion in student debt. No addressing income inequality. No program to feed the 17 million children who go to bed each night hungry. No rational gun control or curbing of the epidemic of nihilistic violence and mass shootings. No help for the 100,000 Americans who die each year of drug overdoses. No minimum wage of $15 an hour to counter 44 years of wage stagnation. No respite from gas prices that are projected to hit $6 a gallon.
The permanent war economy, implanted since the end of World War II, has destroyed the private economy, bankrupted the nation, and squandered trillions of dollars of taxpayer money. The monopolization of capital by the military has driven the US debt to $30 trillion, $6 trillion more than the US GDP of $24 trillion. Servicing this debt costs $300 billion a year. We spent more on the military, $813 billion for fiscal year 2023, than the next nine countries, including China and Russia, combined.
We are paying a heavy social, political, and economic cost for our militarism. Washington watches passively as the U.S. rots, morally, politically, economically, and physically, while China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, India, and other countries extract themselves from the tyranny of the U.S. dollar and the international Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT), a messaging network banks and other financial institutions use to send and receive information, such as money transfer instructions. Once the U.S. dollar is no longer the world’s reserve currency, once there is an alternative to SWIFT, it will precipitate an internal economic collapse. It will force the immediate contraction of the U.S. empire shuttering most of its nearly 800 overseas military installations. It will signal the death of Pax Americana.
Democrat or Republican. It does not matter. War is the raison d'état of the state. Extravagant military expenditures are justified in the name of ‘national security.’ The nearly $40 billion allocated for Ukraine, most of it going into the hands of weapons manufacturers such as Raytheon Technologies, General Dynamics, Northrop Grumman, BAE Systems, Lockheed Martin, and Boeing, is only the beginning. Military strategists, who say the war will be long and protracted, are talking about infusions of $4 or $5 billion in military aid a month to Ukraine. We face existential threats. But these do not count. The proposed budget for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in fiscal year 2023 is $10.675 billion. The proposed budget for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is $11.881 billion. Ukraine alone gets more than double that amount. Pandemics and the climate emergency are afterthoughts. War is all that matters. This is a recipe for collective suicide.”
- Chris Hedges, from “No Way Out but War.”The Chris Hedges Report, 22 May 2022.
I don’t even want to write a review of “Top Gun: Maverick” honestly, I’ve seen 1,500+ movies and I’ve never finished one that left me more depressed about the future of this country. I just want to stop thinking about it
