Slashdot Mirror
Cut Down On Nukes To Shave the Deficit
Hugh Pickens writes "Joe Cirincione writes in the Atlantic that the US government is set to spend almost $700 billion on nuclear weapons over the next 10 years, roughly as much as it spent on the war in Iraq over the last decade. Most of the money will be spent without any clear guidance on how many weapons we need and for what purpose. As long as nuclear weapons exist, we will need some to deter nuclear threats from others, but do we really need to duplicate the entire nuclear triad for another 50 years? 'The Pentagon budget includes funds to develop a new fleet of 12 nuclear-armed submarines with an estimated cost of $110 billion, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Also planned is $55 billion for 100 new bombers, and a new missile to replace the recently upgraded 450 Minutemen III intercontinental ballistic missiles. ... The consensus among military officials and bipartisan security experts is that nuclear reductions enhance US national security,' writes Cirincione. As the Nuclear Posture Review says, 'Our most pressing security challenge at present is preventing nuclear proliferation and nuclear terrorism, for which a nuclear force of thousands of weapons has little relevance.'"
The bombings of Tokyo damaged more and killed more than both nukes combined.
The two nuclear bombs ended the war, not because we vaporized two cities, but because they had no idea how many more we had.
The stimulus didn't fail. The economy was in free fall, whereas now it's just stagnant. Had we done another round of stimulus the odds are pretty good that we'd be going in the right direction. But, it's pretty dishonest to say that it didn't work when rather than free fall we're moving in the right direction, albeit slowly.
At any rate, cutting taxes for the wealthy hasn't exactly been working out so well. And we've got more than enough capital right now in the markets. What we don't have is consumer spending because all that money is going to the wealthiest.