Pentagon burns through roughly $2 billion a day [Robert Reich]

Friends, 

Here’s what former President Dwight Eisenhower, a Republican and former five-star General, had to say about military spending: “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.”

Today, the Pentagon burns through roughly $2 billion a day. We spend more on our military than the next 11 countries combined, and deploy it in nearly 140 nations around the world. Around a third of our foreign aid budget goes toward military assistance instead of humanitarian relief.

Despite Joe Biden’s commitment to withdraw from Afghanistan, we’re still backing billions in additional defense spending. And yet Republicans and a few Democrats say we can’t afford to provide our people with childcare, pre-K, free community college, home care, and paid family and medical leave. 

As the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. put it: “A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom.”

Investing in prosperity at home rather than fighting endless wars abroad isn’t just fiscally responsible — it’s also the morally and spiritually correct choice for our country, and the world.

That's my view. What do you think?