There's Always Money for War

[Guest guest]

There's Always Money for War

By Jared Bernstein

TomPaine.com

 

Monday 12 March 2007

 

Okay, this is going to sound really naive. It's the kind of

question you'd expect from an earnest, if not slightly annoying, 12-

year-old, not from a hard-boiled wonk like yours truly. But why is it

that our representatives can easily raise endless amounts of money for

war, but can't adequately fund human needs?

 

Exhibit #1: The Washington Post recently ran an important article

documenting the loss of child-care subsidies to low-income, working

parents. One of the lessons from welfare reform is that such work

supports are a critical component of a pro-work, anti-poverty agenda.

But because the program is terribly underfunded - fewer than a fifth

of eligible people receive help - there's a huge waiting list, and

families are left to give up on work or patch together less-than-

desirable child-care situations.

 

Exhibit #2: If the president gets his way on budget requests over

the next few years, and he always has, the Congressional Budget Office

tells us that spending on the Iraq war will soon top $500 billion -

$746 billion if you throw in Afghanistan. According to OMBWatch, the

Congress will soon begin evaluating the largest supplemental funding

bill ever requested by an administration: just shy of $100 billion,

mostly for the war on terror and its sundry components.

 

Exhibit #3: We currently spend about $5 billion a year at the

federal level on the block grant that funds child care. Last year, we

added a $1 billion increase over five years. A bill to dedicate $6

billion more died in the Senate. Because these values are not adjusted

for either inflation or population growth, the demand for child-care

slots is outpacing capacity. According to the Bush administration's

own budget, if we fail to devote more resources to child care, by

2010, the families of 300,000 fewer children will get the help they

need.

 

Exhibit #4: I recently testified before the Senate Finance

Committee on the question of whether there needed to be $8 billion

worth of tax cuts to businesses to offset the impact of the federal

minimum wage increase. I argued that the cuts were unnecessary, but in

this context, consider this point: Because tax cuts must now be paid

for, the committee was able to come up with $8 billion of offsets to

pay for these cuts.

 

In other words, when they want to, Congress can allocate or raise

money. The problem, as put by my colleague Lawrence Mishel, is " ...

the direct consequence of maintaining other priorities. Some [policy

makers] are wedded to maintaining the recent tax cuts. Many more

believe we have to spend whatever it takes for the wars in Iraq and

Afghanistan ... [o]thers believe that moving toward a balanced budget

is essential. Whatever one thinks of these positions it is clear that

the result is that human capital investments get the leftover fiscal

scraps. "

 

For those of us unhappy with this state of affairs, who believe

that these are the wrong priorities, the big - giant, really -

question is what has to change?

 

The answer, I think, comes from a meeting of top-down and bottom-

up. Today's priorities are the result of politicians' perceptions that

their constituents, at least the ones they care about, want government

to wage war and cut taxes, not to provide child and health care. Thus,

the first step in turning this around is to tap and nurture demand

among the electorate for the best solutions to the problems we face.

I've stressed child care for low-income workers because it's so

important to their ability to escape poverty, but think of national

health care in this light, along with retirement security and the

inequalities associated with globalization.

 

Progressive policy advocates need to shape and promote an agenda

that reaches people on these issues and is at the scale of the

challenges they face. If such an agenda is articulated by a 2008

candidate, it may well start to resonate and reverberate in precisely

the way that's needed to reshape the priorities of those who hold the

purse strings. Then I can go back to being a hard-boiled wonk instead

of a naive ingenue who wants to trade guns for butter.

 

--------

 

Jared Bernstein is senior economist with the Economic Policy

Institute and author of All Together Now: Common Sense for a Fair

Economy.

 

 

 

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