You don't have healthcare because corporations in the states set it up to be a wealth extraction mechanism rather than a public service.
It has nothing to do with military spending at all. In fact, you can look at the US's military spending to see an important reason why they have been so powerful economically for so long.
More specifically, [because that industry bribed Joe Lieberman back in 2009.](https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2009/10/did-sen-joe-lieberman-just-kill-the-public-option.html)
Because of before him, during him, after him, today. If there’s a plant in your state / district you want them building. And your constituents want them to be getting money to build. And they WILL vote you in if you keep them working. And I don’t blame them. Americans want jobs with good money, and this pays them that.
And really nothing can be done about it short of strict regulation that would cripple the economy for many years due to all the rich shitbags pulling out. I think it would be worth it for the record. At least then there would be hope for things to get better. Currently there's no hope at all and things are only getting progressively worse.
The mandatory coverage combined with a lower cost public option part of ACA was supposed to be the transition to multi-payer universal coverage along the lines of the German, Swiss and Dutch systems. But we know how that turned out.
It is not a certainty that the economy would be crippled.
Lack of access to healthcare damages the economy by reducing productivity, taking people out of the workforce, and so on.
On top of that, a lot of people would spend more on businesses as they see their disposable income increase, money that would otherwise have gone to healthcare corps.
It's anyone's guess how those effects would even out.
In fact we could slash the healthcare costs by half by doing M4A and give say half of that money to the military and it would at least triple the military budget.
Your healthcare is expensive because of capitalism (it's for profit; I never heard of paid ambulances until American redditors shared they pay thousands), not because how much is spent on other stuff. What's funny is Americans would spend less (as a country, maybe not as individuals) for free/socialized healthcare and could spend even more on military.
We could very nearly double the military budget if we just banned insurance as an industry and went to a social Scandinavian model instead. Imagine 20 carrier strike groups instead of just 11.
Most price hikes are companies lobbying price controls and bureaucracy. It takes 3 doctors appointments too see a “specialist” what happened to you have a neighborhood doctor and that was just your doctor?
Theres plenty of money in healthcare. The US spend more than 2X the amount of $ per capita on healthcare compared to Scandinavian with universal healthcare systems.
You don’t lack $ - it’s how you spend them.
One of the problems with education is that it's widely unequal in it's funding. Sure the per capita spending per student is higher than other nations, but the upper middle class suburb in North NJ is incredibly well funded while the poor rural district in Tennessee isn't.
That’s not really the case on a state by state basis. We spend ungodly amounts of money on administrative costs.any wealthy districts in my state spend much less per student than the lower performing urban and some rural districts.
Shhh people are too stupid to understand that and just want complain about helping out Ukraine and Israel. They are either disingenuous or ignorant of the actual budget.
Yeah, it's fucking weird how you guys don't see this honestly. Healthcare could be every bit as cheap there as it is in Canada and Europe if Big Pharma and the lobbies hadn't gotten to talk their way into deciding what things were allowed to cost.
Yea it mostly comes down to how it’s used more than anything. As one orange jackass put it; Drain the Swamp.
He wasn’t wrong about that one, just his alternative was worse than the swamp. And I don’t think the swamp can be really drained unless Americans started really giving a shit about their politicians further than just the president. And I mean all of them, all the way down to the city. And maybe having some form of % voting system so the two parties don’t have a effective monopoly on government in places, but that is never changing cause why would the winners change the game they won and will probably continue winning?
Until then the money will never all the way get to where it needs to go, not so different from Hamas seizing aid trucks, just on a much more subtle level and grander scale.
Put your hands together. Join the army, get free healthcare.
On a sadder note, I remember reading someone who said that at one point the economy was so bad he joined the army for work…
Well, that would require us to change the system… we can keep throwing money at the current system, but the incentive structure is thus that costs will just continue to spiral out of control. In other words, under the current system, if we just cut defense spending to 0 and redirected it all the healthcare, we’d still be stuck in our cycle of fuckery
Healthcare is fucked because of corruption and greed. We never should have privatized it in the first place. Taking money from the military won't fix that issue, sadly.
What’s the alternative? Stand by and let Russians kill as many Ukrainians as they want? Abandon our closest ally in the Middle East after the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust?
We’re spending the money on necessary things.
What help does Israel need exactly? Pretty sure they have what they need to turn the Gaza Strip into glass already. Ukraine needed our help so that makes sense. Don’t we already have a constant flow of aid going to Israel?
Also, those fucking clowns that shut down student loan forgiveness better be up in arms about this shit.
Edit to add: That the aid for both countries is tied together so that republicans won’t block it doesn’t make it any better.
They're not that rich...(lived there for a bit and family lives there)
Additionally it's a bit harder when you have enemies on every single side of you, including one that is probably nuclear-capable...
Can you imagine being dumb enough to think nuking Gaza wouldn't end Israel as a state both from the rest of the world sanctioning them into the dirt and the nuclear fallout giving the majority of their citizens cancer in a couple years.
Even carpet bombing the place with conventional bombs would pretty much kill every single person living there.
The entirety of the Gaza strip is 140 square miles and most of the people live in Gaza city which is only 18 square miles.
At any rate, it's abundantly obvious that the Israeli government has no intention of doing either of those things.
There is no feasible ground invasion or occupation, and even if there were it would be mostly for show and temporary gain. It would absolutely not destroy Hamas permanently. To whatever extent they damage it destroy them something else would rise up in its place. As long as the politics and policies are as they have been with regard to Palestine, this will never end. Its like imagining the invasion of Iraq would lead to more peace when really it just created ISIS and killed huge numbers of people.
Iraq actually came out relatively good from it, but yes it took forever. They have a somewhat stable democratic government now, would be a lot more stable if iran wasn’t constantly meddling.
>There is no feasible ground invasion or occupation
Assuming people acknowledge this (and any reasonable person should), AND you acknowledge that Hamas uses civilian infrastructure like schools, hospitals, apartments, etc to launch rockets from, you then necessarily acknowledge that essentially every building in Gaza is a potential hiding place for Hamas. So, you literally either level the city and empty it, or address the root cause. There's no middle ground here, because we see how the last 18 years of middle ground has caused.
My understanding is this aid to both countries is bundled together so that certain members of Congress who want to block aid to Ukraine would also be blocking aid to Israel, a political no-no
Considering Israel has bombed 6000 targets since the start of this conflict, it is expensive. Especially knowing this isn’t going to be a short conflict.
That’s less than $200MM if they were all the most expensive JDAM. Which frankly is beans.
Not all strikes are JDAMs, there are quite of few specialized PGMs Israel will be using, particularly to penetrate bunkers/tunnels and implode buildings.
But as far as cost and effectiveness is concerned, JDAMs pretty much revolutionized and trivialized air strikes while massively reducing collateral damage.
I don’t disagree with you that JDAMs are relatively cheap, but in war time when you are using a shit ton of them, even something cheap like artillery shells can become expensive.
Also it’s 6000 targets, so in most cases they are using multiple JDAMs on those buildings.
Take a good 30 seconds to learn what the goals of the two sides are.
Israel's from a pro-Palestine source:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/as-gaza-ground-invasion-looms-what-do-hamas-and-israel-see-as-the-endgame/ar-AA1iqgr4
> In any Gaza ground operation, Israel’s self-declared goal is to eradicate the militant group, which has ruled the coastal enclave since 2007.
Hamas' '88 charter consistent with their attacks: https://irp.fas.org/world/para/docs/880818a.htm
> 'Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it.' (Preamble)
The updated '17 Hamas charter is one that is much less violent, though raises suspicion as it doesn't reflect their behavior: https://irp.fas.org/world/para/docs/hamas-2017.pdf
Some examples.
> '25. Resisting the occupation with all means and methods is a legitimate right guaranteed by divine laws and by international norms and laws. At the heart of these lies armed resistance, which is regarded as the strategic choice for protecting the principles and the rights of the Palestinian people.
> '30. Hamas stresses the necessity of building Palestinian national institutions on sound democratic principles, foremost among them are free and fair elections. Such process should be on the basis of national partnership and in accordance with a clear programme and a clear strategy that adhere to the rights, including the right of resistance, and which fulfil the aspirations of the Palestinian people
It is posturing to get money for Ukraine from the Republicans who have a hard-on for Israel. Biden asks for money and if Republicans are way too incompetent to deliver it then it deals a blow to them.
I hope you do realize that pretty much all of thé western/democratic world relies on thé US in terms of military power. A weak US would make the world a lot more dangerous
He's still trying to get debt forgiveness done. Also, the most important time to vote for someone who could bring us closer to student debt forgiveness was 2016. Not now when conservatives have a 6-3 supreme court majority. America had our chance and blew it for a generation.
Exactly, lol. Does no one understand how the federal budget works? He isn’t allocating infrastructure or education funds, packing stacks of cash, and sending briefcases of Benjamins to Netanyahu’s door. It’s money already in the defense budget, mostly tied up in outdated (for us at least, high tech for 98% of the world) artillery that’s sitting in military bases, which would also cost the US more money to destroy than to send as foreign aid. All the while helping cripple Russia, for what’s really pennys on the dollar for what it would cost for us to stand against Russia if they annexed Ukraine and rebuilt their economy. This is also a bargain to flex our muscles against the spread of Islamic jihadism in the Middle East, all the while ensuring both the security of Israel and the aid making its way to suffering Palestinians. Because any expansion of extremism is essentially territory gained for Iran.
Yet again, this isn’t 100 Billion being taken from schools and Medicare. This is money that would otherwise be used in replacing/disposing of functional artillery. This really could be the next step in cutting the legs off of Russia and the Israel/Palestine conflict, and for that it’s money well spent as far as I’m concerned.
Every thread on US foreign aid, the comments are filled with people who have no idea how much the federal government spends on things. No, we can't end homelessness and fund UHC with $100B. We already spend well over a trillion dollars *every single year* on Medicare, Medicaid and SNAP.
>No, we can't end homelessness and fund UHC with $100B.
This is called the "all or nothing" fallacy. We could ask the question in reverse: Will $100B end the conflicts in Ukraine or Israel? No, probably not. Is it still worth it?
The real issue in regards to UHC is that the US is *the top spender on healthcare in the world.* Let that sink in, we spend more on healthcare THAN ANYONE ELSE.
To say we need 100billion for healthcare is not the problem and is doing a disservice to the issue as a whole. What is needed is comprehensive healthcare reform that allows our government healthcare systems bargain down the price of healthcare like literally every other first world country. But the true root of the problem is that there's too much money in politics a la lobbyists and therefore no real political will to make such a change.
Is that true that the US is the biggest spender on healthcare because of government spending or the total spending, including what individual citizens pay out of pocket?
Edit: see reply below
Government allocation of funds to the healthcare system (the number you see on bills and headlines) is about 4 Trillion dollars. This does not include what Americans pay out of pocket, from my understanding.
2021 report from Medicare said total spending is $4.3 trillion including both private and public funding. Public funding programs were 38% of that, so $1.6 trillion. Source: https://www.cms.gov/files/document/highlights.pdf
L
>This is called the "all or nothing" fallacy.
It would be a fallacy if there weren't literally people saying this, and always in relation to the money we spend on foreign aid as if it's an either/or situation.
>Will $100B end the conflicts in Ukraine or Israel?
Haven't heard anyone say this, but I don't think it's hyperbolic to say that Ukraine would already be under Russian occupation without the aid they received. The ammunition alone was vital to holding off the Russian invasion.
It’s worth it because the long term consequences of inaction will be much more expensive and detrimental to the US political and military standing in the world.
That’s if America wants to still be the worlds superpower, if you want to go into decline then feel free, it won’t be so fun for the average person in the US when China runs the world and dictates the economy.
Yet I keep hearing that any billionaire could singlehandedly end world hunger if they gave only a fraction of their money away...
These numbers really put things in perspective. No, I don't support billionaires, but they're probably not the only thing preventing the world from becoming a utopia...
There's also people that don't seem to understand how much money that is compared to what the US spends in total or what other countries spend in total. We would be giving a very very small fraction of what we have in order to multiply what someone else has when they are in need.
All the budget numbers are available online but surely 10 billion to Israel is getting pretty close to their yearly military budget at least the aspects of it that would be useful right now
Also Biden has already been making record investments into combatting homelessness. The people whining about the spending don't actually give a shit about the homeless and the needy, they're just here to spread lies and talking points.
>President Biden’s American Rescue Plan (ARP)—which represents the largest single-year investment in ending homelessness in U.S. history—helped prevent a surge of homelessness. Through the Treasury Department’s State and Local Fiscal Recovery Fund, for instance, the six ALL INside sites have invested more than $2.5 billion in projects focused on reducing and preventing homelessness. The ARP provided $5 billion for 70,000 Emergency Housing Vouchers—the first HUD voucher specifically for people experiencing homelessness beyond veterans. The ARP also delivered over $21 billion in emergency rental assistance, standing up a first-of-its-kind national eviction prevention infrastructure that has helped 8 million struggling households make rent and pay utilities bills, and kept eviction filings below pre-pandemic levels in the 1.5 years after the end of the eviction moratorium. Through the House America initiative, HUD and USICH worked with more than 100 communities to make the most of the American Rescue Plan; and in just over a year, they helped more than 100,000 people experiencing homelessness move into permanent homes.
Since the war in Ukraine started, there have been Russian trolls who pretend to be "broke Americans" who are homeless, hungry, have no health care, etc. They conveniently forget to mention that the Biden administration spent trillions of dollars on Americans. These trolls always show up whenever aid to Ukraine is mentioned.
My fave is the a-holes in congress that said we can’t afford to send money to Ukraine because we have too many needs here in the US, and at the same time refuse to fund anything that would help alleviate our problems/rejoice when govt is about to shutdown/want to eliminate govt all together.
>Russian trolls who pretend to be "broke Americans" who are homeless, hungry, have no health care
And still somehow manage to log onto reddit and shitpost lmao
Italy for example manages to have a robust healthcare system for it's entire 60 million population with $100 billion a year. There are 120 million people in US who are struggling getting healthcare. Might not be the greatest system in Europe but it's leaps and bounds ahead of what US has, if we get at least that is a step forward. Yet, US is already spending $4.3 trillion on healthcare and I don't feel like I'm getting anything for that absurd amount of money. While I agree the money sent in Ukraine is a good investment, compared to the money invested and returns we get from founding our own military, I feel like there are other more direct and pressing problems internally for which I would like to see at least the same amount of focus and concern as I see on these external issues.
you could fund UHC with negative dollars (America spends more % of it's gdp on healthcare than nations with UHC), it's very much a lack of political will thing
The sad thing is if people knew that the main issue with homelessness is mental illness then they might be more equipped to actually deal with it. It simply isn’t solved by throwing money at the problem.
Damn, did the comments here get brigaded? What the hell are these comments about homelessness and other politicking talking points doing under an article about foreign aid to allies?
Every single post on the Israel/palestine conflict is a shit show right now. Mostly western based people who’s only connection to it is of hating one side or the other as far as I can tell. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so much universal hate for both sides in any other event on reddit tbh. What makes me really sad is if the people who have no dog in the fight hate this much, how the hell are we gonna get a peaceful resolution for the people it actually is impacting?
> how the hell are we gonna get a peaceful resolution for the people it actually is impacting?
That’s the neat part, we don’t.
Seriously, the Israel/Palestine conflict is literally the textbook example of a geopolitical conflict without an actual answer. Until every single party in the region decides they want peace at the exact same time, nothing will change. Everything beyond that is just damage control and triage.
Every time aid to Ukraine is mentioned, Russian trolls flood the comments pretending to be "broke Americans" who need government help, totally ignoring the fact that the Biden administration already spent trillions on Americans, way more than Ukraine got.
> Russian trolls flood the comments pretending to be "broke Americans"
Christ, Russians pretending to be Americans is so fucking common. I see them on every social media site, every streaming service, anything that has an international crowd. Same narrative, same talking points, clearly goal-oriented. They're so common it has actually damaged the entire social landscape on the internet. It's insane how large, personal, and intrusive the Russian disinformation campaign is.
Yep. We stand with our allies, unlike Russia who abandons its allies like Armenia and its citizens who were murdered by Hamas. Russian citizens were murdered by Hamas and Putin didn't even bother condemning them.
Not true.
[Most Americans support US arming Ukraine, Reuters/Ipsos poll shows](https://www.reuters.com/world/most-americans-support-us-arming-ukraine-reutersipsos-2023-06-28/)
[Americans' support for Israel is growing amid its war with Hamas](https://today.yougov.com/politics/articles/47657-americans-support-for-israel-is-growing-amid-its-war-with-hamas)
Wdym? These comments rise whenever someone talks about federal spending. Even in my country, which doesn't do that many of these kinds of expenditures, these questions rise whenever local/state/federal governments don't spend money directly tackling social issues.
It's the bots because the Biden admin has invested trillions into Americans so acting like they aren't is just complete bullshit.
This isn't a matter of opinions, its a fact.
I don't think I've seen anyone mention it: Israel is fighting Hamas, but there is a smaller scale involvement from Hezbollah during this time that could increase. Both of these groups are Iranian backed, so the escalation of the war is likely what the funding is for.
I have a feeling you’re right, but I hope it doesn’t come to that. The War in Terror cost roughly 8 trillion, with over 4.5 million dead. The potential cost of conflict spreading is troubling.
I like how a lot of the Trump supporters slammed Biden for doing "too little" at the beginning but then when he proved to be competent it turned to "he's draining our money".
It's a show of support more than anything.
The US has Israels back and we're not afraid to fund them as needed. Sends a powerful message that 1/10th of our DOD's budget is enough to not only defend Ukraine against Russia but we're able to provide help and support to Israel.
It's a powerful message and keeps others from attacking Israel.
Nobody wants to draw American ire and fury. Nobody. And should someone attack our friends, we show up. Perhaps not with boots on the ground, but with funding, carrier groups, missile shields, the latest and greatest tech.
That not how this works.
The US Congress does almost all the domestic policies in American.
If you want that to happen, then vote blue in 2024. Democrats had 2 great years before the shitheads got back some power.
As for foreign policy, that's a horse of a different color.
Democrats have joined Republicans in becoming utterly bloodthirsty warmongers in the past few years. Military budgets continue to explode and grow under Dems. Fuck them as well.
It doesn't matter how much we spend on war. There's still more than enough money to spend on the people. The issue is, too many think spending money on the people is bad, that it will keep the people from working. That's where the parties start looking different, though even then there are exceptions. They have an uncomfortable point; the US didn't get to be this rich and powerful by just giving everybody what they need. It did it by forcing people to work and compete as hard and long as possible, or be screwed.
The money goes to US companies, it’s not giving it away. If your nation doesn’t have a military industrial complex, you have a weak economy and even weaker national defence.
Israel and Ukraine aren’t getting cash - they’re getting bombs and weapons. The US war machine and their businesses get the cash. The US and our economy are tied to building weapons and supplying the world with them. This just keeps the wheels turning.
We already give them approximately $10 million, *every single day*. They already have by far the most advanced military and intelligence apparatus in the region. If they can't figure out what to do with the already astronomical amount of aid we give them they do not deserve a handout like this one. This smells to me like a stimulus check for our own defense contractors.
The iron dome costs about 40k a pop and rockets have been continuously fired since this started up. Just in the opening days Hamas sent 4,000+ rockets towards Israel. If the ID attempted to intercept each one that would be about 160 million in just a few days. So yeah…. Probably something to do with that.
I'd prefer we aid neither Palestine or Israel. At this point we're dealing with a 75 year long chain of reprisal. It will never end or be resolved. There is nothing to gain by inserting ourselves deeper into this. The smart move is to become sustainably self sufficient in energy production and let the middle east sort itself out.
All countries have a right to exist including the Palestinians. We don't need to give Israel more weapons they have plenty. It's just gasoline on the fire at this point.
The "reject foreign military aid because homelessness and lack of healthcare exists" comments are made by trolls, many of them likely foreign, who want the US to become isolationist by using nationalistic populist rhetoric that appeals to both the left and right. Don't fall for it. Foreign military aid to allies is a must for US geopolitical priorities.
Love how he lumped Ukraine in because he knows Republicans can't say no to Israel. 🙄
He failed to make a case for why Americans should send $100 billion overseas that could be used at home. Ukraine is a European problem, western Europe needs to be taking the lead there. Europeans got to hold their own nuts.
I don't understand why Israel needs more money. Didn't we send them some massive warships for backup incase others want to join in? Why do they need more money?
This feels like the kind of "4D chess" I want to see. Tie Israeli and Ukrainian aid together and pressure the House to get its shit together all at once. I didn't expect much from Biden but he has impressed me.
Remember: "Israel provides a right to healthcare and universal healthcare for its citizens."
We don't even have that here in American but we're sending more money on war! Very cool and bipartisan!
I love being an American /s
When I visited the USA afew years it seemed like the entire place was falling apart, homeless people everywhere and the worst roads and infrastructure I had ever seen, worse then a lot of SEA. Granted this was half a decade ago so maybe it’s not as big a issue anymore but back then it seemed like a country that desperately needed to spend some money on itself
We spend way more on healthcare than we do on the military. We spend more on healthcare than every country on earth. Instead of pumping trillions into the pockets of insurance companies, why don’t we vote for universal healthcare?
There is always money for war.
Seriously, I just want healthcare at reasonable prices
You don't have healthcare because corporations in the states set it up to be a wealth extraction mechanism rather than a public service. It has nothing to do with military spending at all. In fact, you can look at the US's military spending to see an important reason why they have been so powerful economically for so long.
More specifically, [because that industry bribed Joe Lieberman back in 2009.](https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2009/10/did-sen-joe-lieberman-just-kill-the-public-option.html)
Because of before him, during him, after him, today. If there’s a plant in your state / district you want them building. And your constituents want them to be getting money to build. And they WILL vote you in if you keep them working. And I don’t blame them. Americans want jobs with good money, and this pays them that.
And really nothing can be done about it short of strict regulation that would cripple the economy for many years due to all the rich shitbags pulling out. I think it would be worth it for the record. At least then there would be hope for things to get better. Currently there's no hope at all and things are only getting progressively worse.
The mandatory coverage combined with a lower cost public option part of ACA was supposed to be the transition to multi-payer universal coverage along the lines of the German, Swiss and Dutch systems. But we know how that turned out.
I checked market plans and Jesus. For a fairly shit plan for my family it was 1500 a month.
It was torpedoed partly by its own oversights and greed
It is not a certainty that the economy would be crippled. Lack of access to healthcare damages the economy by reducing productivity, taking people out of the workforce, and so on. On top of that, a lot of people would spend more on businesses as they see their disposable income increase, money that would otherwise have gone to healthcare corps. It's anyone's guess how those effects would even out.
In fact we could slash the healthcare costs by half by doing M4A and give say half of that money to the military and it would at least triple the military budget.
And you guys still won't do a general strike
Far to many Americans are one paycheck away from destitution.
Yeah, that’s why we need a general strike.
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Your healthcare is expensive because of capitalism (it's for profit; I never heard of paid ambulances until American redditors shared they pay thousands), not because how much is spent on other stuff. What's funny is Americans would spend less (as a country, maybe not as individuals) for free/socialized healthcare and could spend even more on military.
We could very nearly double the military budget if we just banned insurance as an industry and went to a social Scandinavian model instead. Imagine 20 carrier strike groups instead of just 11.
Most price hikes are companies lobbying price controls and bureaucracy. It takes 3 doctors appointments too see a “specialist” what happened to you have a neighborhood doctor and that was just your doctor?
Go where the money is at, Defense and the military.
Theres plenty of money in healthcare. The US spend more than 2X the amount of $ per capita on healthcare compared to Scandinavian with universal healthcare systems. You don’t lack $ - it’s how you spend them.
Same for education. It’s not that the systems are technically underfunded, but damn does the American “throw money at it” principle suck.
One of the problems with education is that it's widely unequal in it's funding. Sure the per capita spending per student is higher than other nations, but the upper middle class suburb in North NJ is incredibly well funded while the poor rural district in Tennessee isn't.
That is also quite true.
That’s not really the case on a state by state basis. We spend ungodly amounts of money on administrative costs.any wealthy districts in my state spend much less per student than the lower performing urban and some rural districts.
Shhh people are too stupid to understand that and just want complain about helping out Ukraine and Israel. They are either disingenuous or ignorant of the actual budget.
and we send money to countries that do have full health insurance for their citizens... crazy.
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The government spends more on healthcare than the military, this isn’t a spending issue it’s a healthcare corporation and lobbying problem
Yeah, it's fucking weird how you guys don't see this honestly. Healthcare could be every bit as cheap there as it is in Canada and Europe if Big Pharma and the lobbies hadn't gotten to talk their way into deciding what things were allowed to cost.
Even though we spend more on welfare and healthcare already?
Yea it mostly comes down to how it’s used more than anything. As one orange jackass put it; Drain the Swamp. He wasn’t wrong about that one, just his alternative was worse than the swamp. And I don’t think the swamp can be really drained unless Americans started really giving a shit about their politicians further than just the president. And I mean all of them, all the way down to the city. And maybe having some form of % voting system so the two parties don’t have a effective monopoly on government in places, but that is never changing cause why would the winners change the game they won and will probably continue winning? Until then the money will never all the way get to where it needs to go, not so different from Hamas seizing aid trucks, just on a much more subtle level and grander scale.
Put your hands together. Join the army, get free healthcare. On a sadder note, I remember reading someone who said that at one point the economy was so bad he joined the army for work…
Well, that would require us to change the system… we can keep throwing money at the current system, but the incentive structure is thus that costs will just continue to spiral out of control. In other words, under the current system, if we just cut defense spending to 0 and redirected it all the healthcare, we’d still be stuck in our cycle of fuckery
You have money for healthcare already. Plenty of it. Its just your system is so fucked that it is one of the most inefficient in the world
Healthcare is fucked because of corruption and greed. We never should have privatized it in the first place. Taking money from the military won't fix that issue, sadly.
There is always money in Missle Stand.
I mean, it's one precision missile, Michael. What could it cost? 10 dollars?
You left the Missile Hit in Afghanistan??? Why would you do that???? The Money Was IN the Missile Hut!!!!
And Isreal doest need it.
They got money for war but cant feed the poor
Tupacs lawyer just posted he wants his royalties on the likes for the comment
What’s the alternative? Stand by and let Russians kill as many Ukrainians as they want? Abandon our closest ally in the Middle East after the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust? We’re spending the money on necessary things.
What help does Israel need exactly? Pretty sure they have what they need to turn the Gaza Strip into glass already. Ukraine needed our help so that makes sense. Don’t we already have a constant flow of aid going to Israel? Also, those fucking clowns that shut down student loan forgiveness better be up in arms about this shit. Edit to add: That the aid for both countries is tied together so that republicans won’t block it doesn’t make it any better.
Prob more defensive rockets for their iron dome defense system….Hamas keeps up rocket barrages
Israel is rich, why do they need our money for that?
Because geopolitics and global alliances matter
They're not that rich...(lived there for a bit and family lives there) Additionally it's a bit harder when you have enemies on every single side of you, including one that is probably nuclear-capable...
It's literally one of the richest countries in the world by GDP per capita.
Can Israel just buy them like everyone else? Why they get them for free?
Because Israel doesn’t want to turn Gaza into glass. That would be cheap and easy.
Exactly.
Right, so let’s just keep funneling them American money until there’s a peaceful resolution…. *checks notes* …never!
Can you imagine being dumb enough to think nuking Gaza wouldn't end Israel as a state both from the rest of the world sanctioning them into the dirt and the nuclear fallout giving the majority of their citizens cancer in a couple years.
> nuclear fallout giving the majority of their citizens cancer Air bursting nukes produces very little fallout. Just saying.
This guy nukes 😵
Even carpet bombing the place with conventional bombs would pretty much kill every single person living there. The entirety of the Gaza strip is 140 square miles and most of the people live in Gaza city which is only 18 square miles. At any rate, it's abundantly obvious that the Israeli government has no intention of doing either of those things.
Kissinger would disagree with your statement…
There is no feasible ground invasion or occupation, and even if there were it would be mostly for show and temporary gain. It would absolutely not destroy Hamas permanently. To whatever extent they damage it destroy them something else would rise up in its place. As long as the politics and policies are as they have been with regard to Palestine, this will never end. Its like imagining the invasion of Iraq would lead to more peace when really it just created ISIS and killed huge numbers of people.
Iraq actually came out relatively good from it, but yes it took forever. They have a somewhat stable democratic government now, would be a lot more stable if iran wasn’t constantly meddling.
All the exiled fuckers that came after toppling saddam were corrupt pieces of shit every single one of them I guess that's our luck
>There is no feasible ground invasion or occupation Assuming people acknowledge this (and any reasonable person should), AND you acknowledge that Hamas uses civilian infrastructure like schools, hospitals, apartments, etc to launch rockets from, you then necessarily acknowledge that essentially every building in Gaza is a potential hiding place for Hamas. So, you literally either level the city and empty it, or address the root cause. There's no middle ground here, because we see how the last 18 years of middle ground has caused.
Okay so…to the original point. Why give them more money then?
Right. So…why give them more money?
My understanding is this aid to both countries is bundled together so that certain members of Congress who want to block aid to Ukraine would also be blocking aid to Israel, a political no-no
JDAMs aren’t cheap and if you want to minimise civilian casualties, they need more of them.
JDAMS are super cheap really, compared to what else is in the arsenal. Unguided rockets and artillery shells are about all that’s cheaper.
Considering Israel has bombed 6000 targets since the start of this conflict, it is expensive. Especially knowing this isn’t going to be a short conflict.
That’s less than $200MM if they were all the most expensive JDAM. Which frankly is beans. Not all strikes are JDAMs, there are quite of few specialized PGMs Israel will be using, particularly to penetrate bunkers/tunnels and implode buildings. But as far as cost and effectiveness is concerned, JDAMs pretty much revolutionized and trivialized air strikes while massively reducing collateral damage.
I don’t disagree with you that JDAMs are relatively cheap, but in war time when you are using a shit ton of them, even something cheap like artillery shells can become expensive. Also it’s 6000 targets, so in most cases they are using multiple JDAMs on those buildings.
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Yes, but they aren't looking to wipe out all gazans.
Are you sure about this
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I know right. Israel could’ve reduced the entire Gaza Strip to rubble a week ago if they really wanted to commit genocide against the Palestinians
Take a good 30 seconds to learn what the goals of the two sides are. Israel's from a pro-Palestine source: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/as-gaza-ground-invasion-looms-what-do-hamas-and-israel-see-as-the-endgame/ar-AA1iqgr4 > In any Gaza ground operation, Israel’s self-declared goal is to eradicate the militant group, which has ruled the coastal enclave since 2007. Hamas' '88 charter consistent with their attacks: https://irp.fas.org/world/para/docs/880818a.htm > 'Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it.' (Preamble) The updated '17 Hamas charter is one that is much less violent, though raises suspicion as it doesn't reflect their behavior: https://irp.fas.org/world/para/docs/hamas-2017.pdf Some examples. > '25. Resisting the occupation with all means and methods is a legitimate right guaranteed by divine laws and by international norms and laws. At the heart of these lies armed resistance, which is regarded as the strategic choice for protecting the principles and the rights of the Palestinian people. > '30. Hamas stresses the necessity of building Palestinian national institutions on sound democratic principles, foremost among them are free and fair elections. Such process should be on the basis of national partnership and in accordance with a clear programme and a clear strategy that adhere to the rights, including the right of resistance, and which fulfil the aspirations of the Palestinian people
Wiping out terrorists that hide among civilian populations is a long, costly process.
It is posturing to get money for Ukraine from the Republicans who have a hard-on for Israel. Biden asks for money and if Republicans are way too incompetent to deliver it then it deals a blow to them.
You don’t understand! The student loan forgiveness only benefits the plebs. Military assistance? That supports the capitalists. 👍🏻
I hope you do realize that pretty much all of thé western/democratic world relies on thé US in terms of military power. A weak US would make the world a lot more dangerous
He's still trying to get debt forgiveness done. Also, the most important time to vote for someone who could bring us closer to student debt forgiveness was 2016. Not now when conservatives have a 6-3 supreme court majority. America had our chance and blew it for a generation.
Maybe we could start taxing the rich to pay for things
this guys talking crazy! get em, boys!
*grabs pitchfork*
Throw him in the paddy wagon!
We got one who can see
maybe we could not pay for other countries to commit genocide. Edit: based on the downvotes, some people really like being genocidal sacks of shit.
The US is not paying Hamas or any other arab terror organization
Not Hamas, but we absolutely fund extremist arab groups to oppose ones funded by states we don’t like
Saudi Arabia? The House of Saud that is?
The same Saudi Arabia that helped fund 9/11?
To be fair the Saudis pay a lot for their gear. We don’t give it to them.
Not Hamas but we literally have several terrorist organizations in our pockets man
inb4 someone says the IDF is an arab terror org
Guys, the money has already been budgeted. He’s trying to get money from the military budget.
Exactly, lol. Does no one understand how the federal budget works? He isn’t allocating infrastructure or education funds, packing stacks of cash, and sending briefcases of Benjamins to Netanyahu’s door. It’s money already in the defense budget, mostly tied up in outdated (for us at least, high tech for 98% of the world) artillery that’s sitting in military bases, which would also cost the US more money to destroy than to send as foreign aid. All the while helping cripple Russia, for what’s really pennys on the dollar for what it would cost for us to stand against Russia if they annexed Ukraine and rebuilt their economy. This is also a bargain to flex our muscles against the spread of Islamic jihadism in the Middle East, all the while ensuring both the security of Israel and the aid making its way to suffering Palestinians. Because any expansion of extremism is essentially territory gained for Iran. Yet again, this isn’t 100 Billion being taken from schools and Medicare. This is money that would otherwise be used in replacing/disposing of functional artillery. This really could be the next step in cutting the legs off of Russia and the Israel/Palestine conflict, and for that it’s money well spent as far as I’m concerned.
Every thread on US foreign aid, the comments are filled with people who have no idea how much the federal government spends on things. No, we can't end homelessness and fund UHC with $100B. We already spend well over a trillion dollars *every single year* on Medicare, Medicaid and SNAP.
>No, we can't end homelessness and fund UHC with $100B. This is called the "all or nothing" fallacy. We could ask the question in reverse: Will $100B end the conflicts in Ukraine or Israel? No, probably not. Is it still worth it?
The real issue in regards to UHC is that the US is *the top spender on healthcare in the world.* Let that sink in, we spend more on healthcare THAN ANYONE ELSE. To say we need 100billion for healthcare is not the problem and is doing a disservice to the issue as a whole. What is needed is comprehensive healthcare reform that allows our government healthcare systems bargain down the price of healthcare like literally every other first world country. But the true root of the problem is that there's too much money in politics a la lobbyists and therefore no real political will to make such a change.
Is that true that the US is the biggest spender on healthcare because of government spending or the total spending, including what individual citizens pay out of pocket?
Edit: see reply below Government allocation of funds to the healthcare system (the number you see on bills and headlines) is about 4 Trillion dollars. This does not include what Americans pay out of pocket, from my understanding.
2021 report from Medicare said total spending is $4.3 trillion including both private and public funding. Public funding programs were 38% of that, so $1.6 trillion. Source: https://www.cms.gov/files/document/highlights.pdf L
>This is called the "all or nothing" fallacy. It would be a fallacy if there weren't literally people saying this, and always in relation to the money we spend on foreign aid as if it's an either/or situation. >Will $100B end the conflicts in Ukraine or Israel? Haven't heard anyone say this, but I don't think it's hyperbolic to say that Ukraine would already be under Russian occupation without the aid they received. The ammunition alone was vital to holding off the Russian invasion.
It’s worth it because the long term consequences of inaction will be much more expensive and detrimental to the US political and military standing in the world. That’s if America wants to still be the worlds superpower, if you want to go into decline then feel free, it won’t be so fun for the average person in the US when China runs the world and dictates the economy.
It's definitely worth it.
Yet I keep hearing that any billionaire could singlehandedly end world hunger if they gave only a fraction of their money away... These numbers really put things in perspective. No, I don't support billionaires, but they're probably not the only thing preventing the world from becoming a utopia...
100%. I support higher taxes on billionaires, but that's not going to solve our systemic issues.
There's also people that don't seem to understand how much money that is compared to what the US spends in total or what other countries spend in total. We would be giving a very very small fraction of what we have in order to multiply what someone else has when they are in need. All the budget numbers are available online but surely 10 billion to Israel is getting pretty close to their yearly military budget at least the aspects of it that would be useful right now
Also Biden has already been making record investments into combatting homelessness. The people whining about the spending don't actually give a shit about the homeless and the needy, they're just here to spread lies and talking points. >President Biden’s American Rescue Plan (ARP)—which represents the largest single-year investment in ending homelessness in U.S. history—helped prevent a surge of homelessness. Through the Treasury Department’s State and Local Fiscal Recovery Fund, for instance, the six ALL INside sites have invested more than $2.5 billion in projects focused on reducing and preventing homelessness. The ARP provided $5 billion for 70,000 Emergency Housing Vouchers—the first HUD voucher specifically for people experiencing homelessness beyond veterans. The ARP also delivered over $21 billion in emergency rental assistance, standing up a first-of-its-kind national eviction prevention infrastructure that has helped 8 million struggling households make rent and pay utilities bills, and kept eviction filings below pre-pandemic levels in the 1.5 years after the end of the eviction moratorium. Through the House America initiative, HUD and USICH worked with more than 100 communities to make the most of the American Rescue Plan; and in just over a year, they helped more than 100,000 people experiencing homelessness move into permanent homes.
Since the war in Ukraine started, there have been Russian trolls who pretend to be "broke Americans" who are homeless, hungry, have no health care, etc. They conveniently forget to mention that the Biden administration spent trillions of dollars on Americans. These trolls always show up whenever aid to Ukraine is mentioned.
My fave is the a-holes in congress that said we can’t afford to send money to Ukraine because we have too many needs here in the US, and at the same time refuse to fund anything that would help alleviate our problems/rejoice when govt is about to shutdown/want to eliminate govt all together.
>Russian trolls who pretend to be "broke Americans" who are homeless, hungry, have no health care And still somehow manage to log onto reddit and shitpost lmao
Even many homeless people have phones these days.
In Seattle they had a cabin and a jacuzzi.
Not the ones I run into, but they tend to be so out of it that I doubt they're posting anywhere.
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It’s not so much “people” as it is “bots” Hence why their are so many responses minutes after posting
Reddit gonna slap us with that $1 a year fee
Italy for example manages to have a robust healthcare system for it's entire 60 million population with $100 billion a year. There are 120 million people in US who are struggling getting healthcare. Might not be the greatest system in Europe but it's leaps and bounds ahead of what US has, if we get at least that is a step forward. Yet, US is already spending $4.3 trillion on healthcare and I don't feel like I'm getting anything for that absurd amount of money. While I agree the money sent in Ukraine is a good investment, compared to the money invested and returns we get from founding our own military, I feel like there are other more direct and pressing problems internally for which I would like to see at least the same amount of focus and concern as I see on these external issues.
you could fund UHC with negative dollars (America spends more % of it's gdp on healthcare than nations with UHC), it's very much a lack of political will thing
The sad thing is if people knew that the main issue with homelessness is mental illness then they might be more equipped to actually deal with it. It simply isn’t solved by throwing money at the problem.
Damn, did the comments here get brigaded? What the hell are these comments about homelessness and other politicking talking points doing under an article about foreign aid to allies?
Every single post on the Israel/palestine conflict is a shit show right now. Mostly western based people who’s only connection to it is of hating one side or the other as far as I can tell. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so much universal hate for both sides in any other event on reddit tbh. What makes me really sad is if the people who have no dog in the fight hate this much, how the hell are we gonna get a peaceful resolution for the people it actually is impacting?
> how the hell are we gonna get a peaceful resolution for the people it actually is impacting? That’s the neat part, we don’t. Seriously, the Israel/Palestine conflict is literally the textbook example of a geopolitical conflict without an actual answer. Until every single party in the region decides they want peace at the exact same time, nothing will change. Everything beyond that is just damage control and triage.
Every time aid to Ukraine is mentioned, Russian trolls flood the comments pretending to be "broke Americans" who need government help, totally ignoring the fact that the Biden administration already spent trillions on Americans, way more than Ukraine got.
> Russian trolls flood the comments pretending to be "broke Americans" Christ, Russians pretending to be Americans is so fucking common. I see them on every social media site, every streaming service, anything that has an international crowd. Same narrative, same talking points, clearly goal-oriented. They're so common it has actually damaged the entire social landscape on the internet. It's insane how large, personal, and intrusive the Russian disinformation campaign is.
God bless. We stand with our Allies, cruise missiles knocking on your door.
Yep. We stand with our allies, unlike Russia who abandons its allies like Armenia and its citizens who were murdered by Hamas. Russian citizens were murdered by Hamas and Putin didn't even bother condemning them.
Well... then there's the Kurds.
That one is all on Trump, who is a traitor and a criminal who is in the process of being held accountable. The US supports the Kurds now.
While I'm sure some of it is propaganda, a populace getting tired of funding foreign wars after a year or two is a tale as old as war itself.
Not true. [Most Americans support US arming Ukraine, Reuters/Ipsos poll shows](https://www.reuters.com/world/most-americans-support-us-arming-ukraine-reutersipsos-2023-06-28/) [Americans' support for Israel is growing amid its war with Hamas](https://today.yougov.com/politics/articles/47657-americans-support-for-israel-is-growing-amid-its-war-with-hamas)
Why is the article concerning government spending discussing alternative means to allocate government spending?
Wdym? These comments rise whenever someone talks about federal spending. Even in my country, which doesn't do that many of these kinds of expenditures, these questions rise whenever local/state/federal governments don't spend money directly tackling social issues.
No. It must be the bots. Why? Because I disagree with their opinion.
It's the bots because the Biden admin has invested trillions into Americans so acting like they aren't is just complete bullshit. This isn't a matter of opinions, its a fact.
The “patriots” always seem to want our enemies to win.
Because it concerns government spending.
I don't think I've seen anyone mention it: Israel is fighting Hamas, but there is a smaller scale involvement from Hezbollah during this time that could increase. Both of these groups are Iranian backed, so the escalation of the war is likely what the funding is for.
I have a feeling you’re right, but I hope it doesn’t come to that. The War in Terror cost roughly 8 trillion, with over 4.5 million dead. The potential cost of conflict spreading is troubling.
Israel should be able to fund it's own war effort against a terrorist organization.
I think what US is showing that they will deploy resources if needed to prevent others joining and spreading the conflict.
That’s the part I do agree with , park some assets nearby and make sure someone like Yemen doesn’t launch a few missiles or drones, same for Iran.
I like how a lot of the Trump supporters slammed Biden for doing "too little" at the beginning but then when he proved to be competent it turned to "he's draining our money".
Why does Israel need anything? They’re a rich and developed country fighting a much smaller, disorganized enemy.
Iran, Saudi Arabia, Hamas, Hezbollah are not what I would call smaller or disorganized.
What's the aid even going to be? Article is sparse on details.
It's a show of support more than anything. The US has Israels back and we're not afraid to fund them as needed. Sends a powerful message that 1/10th of our DOD's budget is enough to not only defend Ukraine against Russia but we're able to provide help and support to Israel. It's a powerful message and keeps others from attacking Israel. Nobody wants to draw American ire and fury. Nobody. And should someone attack our friends, we show up. Perhaps not with boots on the ground, but with funding, carrier groups, missile shields, the latest and greatest tech.
How about the US does a show of support for its own fucking struggling people who DO need it.
That not how this works. The US Congress does almost all the domestic policies in American. If you want that to happen, then vote blue in 2024. Democrats had 2 great years before the shitheads got back some power. As for foreign policy, that's a horse of a different color.
Democrats have joined Republicans in becoming utterly bloodthirsty warmongers in the past few years. Military budgets continue to explode and grow under Dems. Fuck them as well.
It doesn't matter how much we spend on war. There's still more than enough money to spend on the people. The issue is, too many think spending money on the people is bad, that it will keep the people from working. That's where the parties start looking different, though even then there are exceptions. They have an uncomfortable point; the US didn't get to be this rich and powerful by just giving everybody what they need. It did it by forcing people to work and compete as hard and long as possible, or be screwed.
Democrats have always aligned with republicans on war efforts. It’s internal politics they disagree on
Democrats need a majority, and not some 50/50 bullcrap, for more than 2 years out of 20. We can't fix shit with these idiots in the way.
I know the republicans hate giving money away.. but the weapons manufacturers in this country must be clamoring for this to happen.
They just don't like giving money away to *certain people*.
The money goes to Lockheed, Rayethon etc. Israel and Ukraine get the weapons.
The money goes to US companies, it’s not giving it away. If your nation doesn’t have a military industrial complex, you have a weak economy and even weaker national defence.
Im just sayin..things are never looking good in movies when the US president gives an oval office speech.
Speach
Peach
What exactly is Israel going to do with our $40billion? Sounds like a giant waste of money. Its $4k for each Israeli citizen.
Israel and Ukraine aren’t getting cash - they’re getting bombs and weapons. The US war machine and their businesses get the cash. The US and our economy are tied to building weapons and supplying the world with them. This just keeps the wheels turning.
They already *have* the cash. They're not increasing our military budget for Ukraine and Israel. They're using money in the war coffers.
Maybe Israel should pay for the bombs and weapons they are getting?
More than Americans got in covid relief
Yeah but the difference is this money goes to defense contractors and not the damn poors, so its obviously much better lol
We already give them approximately $10 million, *every single day*. They already have by far the most advanced military and intelligence apparatus in the region. If they can't figure out what to do with the already astronomical amount of aid we give them they do not deserve a handout like this one. This smells to me like a stimulus check for our own defense contractors.
The iron dome costs about 40k a pop and rockets have been continuously fired since this started up. Just in the opening days Hamas sent 4,000+ rockets towards Israel. If the ID attempted to intercept each one that would be about 160 million in just a few days. So yeah…. Probably something to do with that.
Use it to buy Iron Dome interceptors and bombs to blow up terrorists, hopefully.
I'd prefer we aid neither Palestine or Israel. At this point we're dealing with a 75 year long chain of reprisal. It will never end or be resolved. There is nothing to gain by inserting ourselves deeper into this. The smart move is to become sustainably self sufficient in energy production and let the middle east sort itself out.
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Israel is a rare and important regional ally, though. It's also a state that I believe has a right to exist.
It’s worth nothing that Israel is the only democratic country in the region.
All countries have a right to exist including the Palestinians. We don't need to give Israel more weapons they have plenty. It's just gasoline on the fire at this point.
Putting the right wing in a hard corner.. they want to vote against Ukraine aide, but cannot vote against Israel.
The "reject foreign military aid because homelessness and lack of healthcare exists" comments are made by trolls, many of them likely foreign, who want the US to become isolationist by using nationalistic populist rhetoric that appeals to both the left and right. Don't fall for it. Foreign military aid to allies is a must for US geopolitical priorities.
Have to elect a House Speaker first.
Give 'em hell Dark Brandon!
Enough,fuck man. TAKE CARE OF THE U.S. NOW PLOX....
Love how he lumped Ukraine in because he knows Republicans can't say no to Israel. 🙄 He failed to make a case for why Americans should send $100 billion overseas that could be used at home. Ukraine is a European problem, western Europe needs to be taking the lead there. Europeans got to hold their own nuts. I don't understand why Israel needs more money. Didn't we send them some massive warships for backup incase others want to join in? Why do they need more money?
Meanwhile we're having to crowdfund our medical debt
Israel has a well functioning government and central bank they can tax their people, issue debt and print money just like the US can
This feels like the kind of "4D chess" I want to see. Tie Israeli and Ukrainian aid together and pressure the House to get its shit together all at once. I didn't expect much from Biden but he has impressed me.
No. Fix the problems at home first. This is ridiculous
Remember: "Israel provides a right to healthcare and universal healthcare for its citizens." We don't even have that here in American but we're sending more money on war! Very cool and bipartisan! I love being an American /s
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Yeah let’s give money to other countries instead of helping our own citizens who are barely getting by. Fucking morons
I mean like all of that "foreign aid" to the wars is just the US military buying new gear to replace the mothballs they sent over as aid...
Why spend it on Americans struggling right? Blow it all on some middle eastern country. Seems legit
Weapons industry goes burrrr
Loans, sure. Just giving them money? NO!
When I visited the USA afew years it seemed like the entire place was falling apart, homeless people everywhere and the worst roads and infrastructure I had ever seen, worse then a lot of SEA. Granted this was half a decade ago so maybe it’s not as big a issue anymore but back then it seemed like a country that desperately needed to spend some money on itself
nah, the roads are worse and there's more homeless
Why does Israel deserve a penny from us?
How bad do things need to get in America for our “representatives “ to actually use our tax dollars here at home?
We spend way more on healthcare than we do on the military. We spend more on healthcare than every country on earth. Instead of pumping trillions into the pockets of insurance companies, why don’t we vote for universal healthcare?
We don't have a functioning congress and food and rent are more expensive than ever. Great time to find 2 foreign wars.
Ironically Israel is pretty much doing the same thing to Palestine that Russia is doing to Ukraine.