(Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell) said..."according to independent estimates, every health care proposal Democrats on Capitol Hill have offered would only hurt the economy."
It's pretty much the fundamental tenet of the GOP's opposition to health care reform; "sure, we need it, but we can't afford it."
David Sirotta wondered last week why providing health care to all Americans is too expensive, when the U.S. spends six times that amount on military spending.
The hypocrisy is stunning -- lots of "budget hawk" complaints about health care legislation reducing the deficit and few "budget hawk" complaints about defense initiatives that, according to Government Executive magazine, "puts the president on track to spend more on defense, in real dollars, than any other president has in one term of office since World War II." And that estimate doesn't even count additional spending on the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.
Back in June, well before the health care debate ramped up, I wrote a post about the inevitable tax increases, and wondered why the military budget is somehow sacrosanct. It included this chart:
I have no problem, really, with the U.S. spending more on defense than any other nation. But more than all the other nations combined? More than six times what any other single nation spends?
Somehow military spending has fallen out of the mix of potential budget cuts; it's just assumed that military spending will continue to escalate and not even be considered when it comes time (if it comes time) to prioritize spending.
It seems politicians like Mitch McConnell didn't blink twice when signing off a couple weeks ago on a one year military budget of $680B. But a bill that offers health insurance to all Americans, costs about $1T over ten years and, according to CBO estimates, actually begins reducing the deficit is too expensive.
Jeez, our priorities are sooooo far out of whack.
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