General Discussion

snot

(11,727 posts)

7. Exactly.

Tue Mar 10, 2026, 07:19 PM

Tuesday

Or on genuinely helping the countries we said we wanted to help, building up our soft power instead of blasting what was left of it to smithereens. Or on public education, infrastructure, health care, etc. etc. etc.

For anyone who isn't aware of the National Priorities Project, their site can be very helpful in thinking about this; see, e.g., https://www.nationalpriorities.org/interactive-data/trade-offs/ :

{In this year's budget alone,} taxpayers in the United States are paying $1.02 trillion [for the military}. Here's what those tax dollars could have paid for instead:

7.63 million Registered Nurses for 1 Year, or
116.49 million Public Housing Units for 1 Year, or
9.57 million Livable Wage Jobs for a Single Parent with Two Children for 1 Year, or
448.95 million People Receiving SNAP Benefits for 1 Year, or
10.84 million Elementary School Teachers for 1 Year, or
12.32 million Firefighter Positions for 1 Year, or
59.34 million Head Start Slots for Children for 1 Year, or
55.67 million Military Veterans Receiving VA Medical Care for 1 Year, or
24.92 million Scholarships for University Students for 4 Years, or
27.29 million Borrowers Receiving Federal Student Loan Forgiveness for 1 Year, or
292.65 million Children Receiving Medicaid for 1 Year, or
61.05 million People Receiving Paid Parental Leave for 1 Year, or
189.78 million Adults Receiving Medicaid for 1 Year, or
1.92 billion Households with Solar Electricity for 1 Year

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snot Skittles

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Highlight:

War Consumes Everything Else [View all] applegrove Monday OP

Been true since the beginning...nt Wounded Bear Monday #1

I don't know many real world people talking about it leftstreet Monday #2

It does (finally) seem to be uniting Americans against war. snot Monday #4

We've also spent trillions on war during my lifetime, snot Monday #3

if all that money had been spent on cancer research Skittles Monday #6

Exactly. snot Tuesday #7

it certainly is part of the repuke playbook Skittles Monday #5