What we could have funded instead of this Iran war

 So...that discussion last night got me thinking. We've spent over $11 billion in the first week of this Iran war alone, and long term costs are looking to be $200 billion over the next year, if not higher. So let's be honest, $200 billion is the lowest estimate, with it possibly costing as high as $400-500 billion on the high end. That's a lot of money. And you know what? We might as well have set it on fire. I mean, in a way we are. Because a lot of it is going into fancy fireworks that blow up oil fields. We're literally setting the money on fire. 

So...say we didnt decide to set a bunch of money on fire as a giant F U to that middle eastern country who we hate. What could we have funded with this money instead? Obviously UBI and Medicare for all are off the table as they cost trillions a year, but there's a lot of other stuff that we could have funded for this instead. 

Build Back Better- $240 billion

I think the most poetically just choice we could have made for this money would have been build back better. After all this is an oil war. Trump wanted the oil, and now....oil is going up...because of the war. Been to the gas pump likely? Trump did that. "Iran your gas prices up", as the stickers now say. But you know what? We could have funded build back better with this money, which would have cut greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030, and made us carbon neutral by 2050. 

And this bill did more than just that. If you look at the estimate, it includes childcare, paid family leave, universal preK, an EITC expansion, and a Child Tax credit which acted like a little UBI for kids and would have cut child poverty in half. This is what Biden wanted to do for us, and I admit, relative to my TRILLIONS of spending with my UBI, its a little barebones on the social program front, but that's still a pretty progressive bill. 

But hey, we couldnt have that because "entitlement society" (F U, Joe Manchin), and republicans are against it for similar reasons. They always scream about how we're broke and cant afford anything and what about the national debt, but they're sure putting this war on Uncle Sam's credit card. How come we always have money for stupid wars in the Middle East and tax breaks for billionaires but we never have any for stuff like this?

Because they dont want to fund it, and they're waging a class war against you, that's why. This is just one of many proposals that could have been funded instead of this stupid fricking war. 

Free college and student debt forgiveness- $220 billion

And I'm not talking about Joe Biden's dinky plan either here, I'm talking the full Bernie. Bernie's plan would come out to $2.2 trillion over 10 years, or $220 billion a year. It would have forgiven all student debt and made college free. We could have invested money to make our next generation of young people smarter, but instead we're sending them to die in the Middle East. What a F-ed up sense of priorities we seem to have...

7.4 million new public housing units- $250 billion

Another Bernie idea, but yeah, Bernie's public housing plan would have produced over 7 million new homes that, at 2.5 being your typical household size, could have housed 18 million people. We have a housing crisis. A lack of affordable housing. While I dont doubt that we need more than this (and tbqh I think it could be done cheaper under the right circumstances, meaning more housing units), it would have helped secure more affordable housing for more people. 

A baseline public option- $200-300 billion

So, as you guys know, Im kinda iffy on Medicare for All these days due to the sheer costs and the fact that funding it on top of a UBI is quite....iffy. As such, I've looked into public options instead, and I'm quite sympathetic to the Medicare Extra for All model, or Medicare for America as it was introduced to congress. While I would say nowadays $300 billion is likely the entry point for the bare minimum option, back when it was proposed in 2018-2019, it cost closer to $200 billion. This isn't the full version of it. Just the most basic bare minimum part of it. The high end version is likely $450-600 billion, but to be fair, the $200 billion being requested to congress for this war is likely the bare minimum version as well, with costs possibly being that high if this war proves to last longer and be higher intensity than we thought. 

Instead, we actually cut healthcare through medicaid cuts and cuts to ACA subsidies. Man, we sure got our priorities straight. F U and your healthcare needs, we gotta set the money on fire in the middle east instead. 

A UBI/tax cut of $1,000 to every adult American - $250-270 billion

We can't fund a full UBI with just a few hundred billion. BUT...we could give every adult in America $1,000...given there are about 250 million of us who would be eligible (the actual number is a bit higher, but my last plan assumed 250 million eligible so let's go with that). Yeah. Who wants tax cuts? or UBI? They're kinda the same thing when you think about it, given I tend to fund my UBI through an NIT style benefit structure. 

Conclusion

I mean these are just some ideas. I honestly think of these proposals, I'd likely choose build back better in part because of the scope, but also because of the poetic justice of actually funding alternative energy sources to get us away from oil, making wars like this less necessary in the future. We invaded Iran partially over the oil, the oil markets are going out of control in response, and we could have instead invested in alternative energy that would make us less dependent on the stuff. 

Honestly, this administration is a joke. Not that it cares. Its priorities are way out of sync with where they should be. This war was unnecessary and its very costly. A huge reason I'm so against it. But it just strikes me as hypocritical that republicans always have money for stupid pointless wars but for things that help YOU? Nah, we're broke, what about the national debt? DOn't let them gaslight you. I dont ever wanna hear that crap ever again. We CAN fund nice things for the people and we should. A big criticism I heard against Biden is we spend so much on foreign stuff, why not invest in the people? While I think Biden's priorities were straight (as evidenced by Build Back Better), okay, where are these Trump voters saying this now? Still believe he's the no new wars guy? Wanna invest that money here at home? Vote democrat. Not saying they're perfect. I can assure you they're not. But they're a whole lot better than this.