 You know, it's always interesting to me that someone like Joe Biden, who has been an Australian for the majority of his career, is never a penny pincher when it comes to the military budget. In fact, his new budgetary proposal calls for an increase to the Pentagon budget that exceeds Trump's military budget. Yeah. So for more on this, we're going to go to John Nichols of the Nation. The framing in this article is a bit weird because he frames it from the perspective of what Robert Reich says, former Labor Secretary. Nonetheless, the details here are what matters. So here's the numbers in particular, as explained through the lens of Robert Reich, quote, Robert Reich knows a thing or two about federal budgets and the economist who has served in three presidential administrations says there is something wrong with Joe Biden's plan to increase Pentagon spending above the levels proposed by former President Trump. The Pentagon already spans $740 billion every year, $2 billion every day, and $1 million every minute says the former Secretary of Labor. The last thing we need is a bigger military budget. Unfortunately, that's what the president is seeking. This has led Reich to announce that he is frankly disappointed that Biden's proposing $715 billion for the Pentagon and increase over Trump's $704 billion defense budget instead of moving back towards Obama-Biden-era levels of defense spending or less. Yeah, so I don't necessarily agree with Robert Reich's framing here. I mean, he does throw in the or less, but we shouldn't use the Obama-Biden-era as the bar. We need to cut military spending in half at a minimum. We could cut it by 75% if you ask me, but understand, we spend a majority of our discretionary budget on the military, and we spend more than the next several biggest countries combined, most of which are our allies. Not actually threats to us in any way, shape, or form, and even if they aren't our allies, there are no way planning on attacking us because we have a gigantic military that would still exist even if we cut the Pentagon budget. So it's just, this is ludicrous. This is stupidity. It really says a lot about a country when they prioritize a gigantic Pentagon budget as people literally starve to death in this country, the most richest country on the planet. Now, thankfully, progressives have spoken out against this besides Robert Reich. There has been elected officials who have denounced this. Bernie Sanders, the Senate Budget Committee Chairman, has spoken out against this as have some members of the House Congressional Progressive Caucus, including Pramila Jayapal, who says we're in the midst of a crisis that has left millions of families unable to afford food, rent, and bills, but at the same time, we're dumping billions of dollars into a bloated Pentagon budget. Don't increase defense spending, cut it, and invest that money into our communities. Now Rashida Tlaibadz, $750 billion for aiding death and destruction is immoral and sick. Instead, we should spend the money to help, $20 billion to end homelessness, $50 billion for free four-year public education, $50 billion for childcare is essential act, $31 billion to fully fund the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, and on top of that, Mark Pokan, part of CPC leadership, was on MSNBC to talk about why this is bad as well. This is the clip provided courtesy of Case Study QB. Give them a follow on Twitter. Well, first off, I think there's a lot of great things in the budget. There's about a 16% increase in a lot of discretionary non-defense spending, things like housing and education and health care. So that's all very good. The problem is there still was about a 1.7% increase in defense spending at a time that I would argue we should have a reduced defense budget. In fact, 50 members of Congress asked to have a lower Pentagon budget due to the fact that in the last administration, last four years of the time of relative peace, we increased the defense budget by 20%. And there's still so a little accountability within that, that putting even more money into something that doesn't really have the same scrutiny as other taxpayer dollars we think is a mistake. Well, where would you cut then from this proposed budget in the Pentagon? Where would it come from? And are there some pressure points to push to get decreased defense spending in the final budget? Sure. Well, there's a lot of areas you could look at. And I think we'd leave it up to the Department of Defense clearly. But we spend a lot with private contractors that cost three or more times what it does for military personnel. We have a number of programs that we would say are outdated that we don't need to do that aren't very effective. And you often hear of some of those most recently, the F-35s, for example, having some serious issues. But also, there's just a lot of fraud and waste and really waste is the issue. There's a land missile-based system that we've tried, spent $5 billion on, scrapped it, spent $20 billion on, scrapped it, and we're going to try it again. And if you did that, there's very little true accountability on some of these Pentagon dollars. And that's the problem we have. We think that a lot of that money could instead be directed to things like housing and education and healthcare that people in this country would see a more direct benefit from. Okay. Now, first of all, let me just say that I really do appreciate individuals like Pramila Jayapal, Rashida Tlaib, and Mark Pokan speaking out against this. But I do have several critiques to their approach. The first is in the framing in particular that Mark Pokan used. I don't really think that progressives and leftists should ever frame things in a fiscal responsibility sense. Like, don't use that frame if you can avoid it because even though that may be useful politically to persuade some people, this is always going to be used against you, right? So if you make it seem as if you care about fiscal responsibility, then when time comes to argue in favor of Medicare for all, what's going to happen? This fiscal responsibility argument will be arbitrarily applied to you. So you don't ever want to walk yourself into that trap. And I mean, of course, if you really are nuanced, you can argue, well, actually, it is more fiscally responsible to support Medicare for all, because it actually reduces overall spending when it comes to healthcare in America. It's more effective. So it leads to less administrative costs. But by the time you explain all of that, you've lost so many people. So you need a message that is clear and concise. And if we're opting for clear and concise, and you're really just trying to drive home a point, I don't think that using fiscal responsibility is the most persuasive, but I don't, I don't actually fault Mark Pokan for trying. Now, when it comes to the framing overall, expanding on this, I think that Rashida Tilly was closest to this, right? You don't have to frame it as, Oh, well, this is irresponsible. We could be using this money for this or that. I think what we really need, the reason why there's no anti-war movement or people just kind of check out when it comes to war, since they're fatigued because it's been going on forever, is because they've forgotten how morally reprehensible this is. Like you can actually say things to elicit a visceral response to people. This money is being used to kill people, put it bluntly, frame it in that way. Because guess what? You're telling the truth. You're not lying to them. The American people, they don't have to think about our bombs that we're dropping on other countries that are killing people. They don't have to think about that out of sight, out of mind. So we need to remind them of that, let them know what's happening, what their government is doing. You can actually use that frame. Now, one last criticism that I have, and this is tough because I'm trying to break this habit as well. I think that we want to not promote this idea that taxes fund federal spending, and you'll know what I'm talking about if you just watched my phenomenal interview with Steve Grumbine about modern monetary theory. It's not like there's a finite amount of money in this country, and we have to really meticulously plan out what we're going to use that for. We own our own sovereign currency. The US government is the sole issuer of the US dollar. So what that means is that we can spend until our hearts content to solve crises. Deficit spending is how you solve these crises. So we shouldn't have to argue, well, if we take 50 billion from the military, we can reallocate that into health care or child education. We don't have to make that argument. Right? And this is why I want people to kind of shift away from the fiscal responsibility argument as it relates to the military budget and onto the morality argument. One, because I think it's more persuasive, but two, because I don't want anyone on the left to promote this idea that the government is short on resources. We are the richest country on the planet, and we can afford not just Medicare for All and all of the priorities that we should have to leave listed, but it's actually an outrage that we're not doing that when we're fully capable of doing just that. We don't have to cut the military budget to have Medicare for All to pay for anything. We could do that like this, because again, we are the sole issuer of the US dollar. The only restraint that we have is inflation. You stop spending when we increase inflation. So that's something that I really want leftist progressives to start to get in the habit of saying. But finally, the last thing that I'll say about this is even though I really appreciate the fact that they're condemning this and they're speaking to how egregious and irresponsible and stupid, quite frankly, it is that we have this gigantic military budget. This isn't going to matter. Like your condemnation isn't enough when your party is in power so long as there's not going to be any consequences. So Joe Biden can hear, oh, well, you know, we're shitted to leave and Pramila Jayapal, they're speaking out against my military budget. But okay, cool story, bro. What do you want me to do with that information? There's no, you know, negative ramifications if you don't support what I'm doing. So in effect, I could do anything I want so long as you're not going to push back against me and push back, you know, part of that is actually speaking out, you know, making sure that the public knows what's happening. But on top of that, if you have your party in power, you actually need to utilize the leverage that you have. And when you have a narrow majority in the House and the Senate, progressives do have more sway. Look at the way that conservative Democrats like Bill Pascrell in the House and Joe Manchin in the Senate are basically threatening to block everything if they don't get what they want. Joe Biden or Joe Manchin, rather, is effectively shaping every single bill that Joe Biden wants to propose, because he knows if he doesn't get that vote, Joe Biden's agenda isn't going to pass. So unless people like Mark Pokan and Pramila Jayapal and Rashida Tlaib actually threaten to hold up Biden's agenda, he's not going to really value your input at all. He's just going to, you know, listen to what you have to say if you're lucky, and then he's going to dismiss it because he knows there's really no teeth to your threats or denunciations. It has no implications, no bearing on his decision-making. And you have to change that. You have to utilize your leverage. Okay, you don't cut defense spending. If you don't start implementing things like, you know, student debt cancellation, we're not going to support anything. If you don't use your pen to cancel $50,000 of student debt, we're not supporting your infrastructure bill. We're not supporting it. And, you know, they're going to get attacked by the mainstream media for that, but you have to fight, right? Push back, argue, no, it's not me that's holding up this bill. It's Joe Biden who's holding up this bill, because all we want for him to do is something that will easily alleviate the debt of millions of Americans, but he's not doing that. So we can't support this morally. We have to demand that he does this. Like, I want them to draw a line in the sand, make demands, get concessions. You have to fight. It's a game that you have to play. And right now they're not playing it. They're getting played. So I really want them to think about the ways that they can use their leverage and also adapt their messaging in order to make what they're selling more easily digestible to people. You know, don't be afraid to get a little bit visual when you describe what happens. Like, we're blowing off people's heads, and that's really uncomfortable to think about. But it's happening. We want people to be uncomfortable. We want people to think, oh my God, I don't want this to happen. I don't want my government to be doing this. Maybe we should stop doing this. Like, it's not a bad thing if you're advocating for a right cause to be explicit and really focusing on the moral aspect, if not exclusively, because it's persuasive. It should be persuasive to anyone who has a heart. So, you know, overall, to kind of wrap a bow in this gigantic story, didn't really plan on talking about this for that long. But this is absolutely obnoxious that Joe Biden is proposing an increase to the military budget. But am I surprised in the slightest? Absolutely not. And every single president will continue to do this until Congress actually takes a stand to the credit of folks like Ro Khanna and Bernie Sanders when Trump was in power. They actually did utilize the War Powers Act to try to stop our support to Saudi Arabia as they did a genocide in Yemen. Things like that need to be replicated this time for the Democratic president. Like, use your powers to actually effect change. And I'll leave that there. You know, I don't want to be too down on them because their criticism of this is good, it's valid, and it's necessary. It's much appreciated. But I want them to go beyond just criticizing this, and I want them to put their words into action.