Singing the Wrong Tune
Posted: 22.02.2010
In his op-ed piece titled “The Fat Lady Sung” Thomas Friedman says “Welcome to the lean years” and?talks in sweeping platitudes of our demise:
Indeed, to lead now is to trim, to fire or to downsize services, programs or personnel. We?ve gone from the age of government handouts to the age of citizen givebacks, from the age of companions fly free to the age of paying for each bag.
What he fails to mention, indeed what everyone speaking on the topic today fail to mention (I’m thinking of the CPAC speeches highlighted lately) is that yes, we are spending too much, but, it’s about what we spend on that matters.
The United States spends nearly more than all other countries in the world combined on our Department of War (ahem, Defense). We maintain over 300 military installations in some 130 countries across the world. We should reduce this drastically and build our own nation.
This over reliance on the MIC has also bred a warped industrial policy, rather, it’s our only industrial policy since all other industry gave way to inexpensive out of country labor markets.