Exceptionally Backward

America has plenty of money. Not just for the things we can't live without, like a strong social safety net, modern infrastructure, public education, universal affordable health care, widespread renewable energy and generous public pensions, but also for the things we need in a civilized democratic society: full employment;  easily available substance abuse treatment and mental health care; eliminating poverty; public parks, libraries and art museums, and so much more.

The problem is not the lack of money. The problem is that we've accepted the Reichwing demand that we spend that money on counter-productive wars - on other countries as well as on drugs and women - and on making the rich richer.

We don't need to cut spending; we need to change it.

Digby:

His point was that even talking about this sort of thing is silly since Republicans believe that there isn't even a small pot of money for liberal nice things so it's ridiculous to even contemplate it. But I think it's strange that Democrats buy into this idea at all. Even they frame these discussions as if the idea of ever raising taxes above the levels we had in the 90s is insane or that reallocating defense money is completely ridiculous. No, if the old people are able to live in dignity, it means that children must go uneducated and if sick people are taken care of it means that young adults are unable to get a college education.  It's up to us liberals to make these Solomon's Choices and live with the consequences because that's-just-how-it-is.

Dean Baker takes on this thesis today:

In a recent WaPo op-ed with the subtle title “Payments to Elders are Harming Our Future,” Harry Holzer and Isabel Sawhill claim that “our very expensive retirement programs already crowd out public spending on virtually all other priorities—including programs for the poor and those that strengthen the nation’s future—and will do so at even higher rates in the next decade and beyond unless we reform these large programs.” 

If this crowd-out thesis were true, we would expect to find that nations that spend more on the elderly spend less on children. But this isn’t the case. Although a bit dated, the chart below, produced by researchers Jonathan Bradshaw and Emese Mayhew, plots expenditures on family benefits and services (per capita child) by expenditures on benefits and services for the elderly (per capita elderly).

The chart shows that countries that spend more per capita on the elderly also spend more per capita on children. Moreover, contrary to Holzer/Sawhill’s claim that we have “very expensive retirement programs”, U.S. expenditures on the elderly are moderate in cross-national terms. Bradshaw and Mayhew conclude: "we have found that if there is generational inequity it does not stem from demography alone. Nations make choices about the level of resources they commit to children and the elderly, and the countries that are most generous to children also tend to be most generous to the elderly."

The US is the most powerful country in the world, blessed with vast wealth and immense capabilities. It's a matter of priorities, that's all, a reflection of values that inform how a just and compassionate society should operate. Other countries put a premium on the welfare of their vulnerable populations. We don't.

There's more data at the link to Baker's article. I'm always struck when I see these charts by what a backwards country we really are. There's a very high cost to running a global military empire filled with people hate their own government.