...but seriously, your point about not giving up power voluntarily (quite a long pedigree that idea has), is exactly why Seymour Melman spent decades trying to push the idea of economic conversion, by which he meant the planned transformation of military firms into civilian ones -- the thought being that much of the popular support for the military has to do with jobs.  If the firms converted to civilian lines of work before their military funding disappeared, so Seymour argued, it might minimize the hysterical reaction of employees in military establishments.

However, that idea came up in the 1960s, when people were still thinking thoughts like, "maybe the military doesn't need all of that money".  Even with the collapse of the Cold War, the public has seemed mesmerized by the Pentagon, and it has become exceedingly difficult to even read statements from progressive groups about using Pentagon money for various worthy causes.

So, now that I've painted myself into a corner, why bring up the issue?  Because I think the first step is simply to bring up the issue.  It should be a first response of a progressive organization to say something like, "we'd like to do such-and-such, and the money should definitely come out of the Pentagon budget", with various qualifications as to the political possibility coming after that statement.  Unless people go for the popsicle idea, of course.

Health Care does not have to come out of the military budget. Take what we already spend in premiums, what individuals pay directly as co-pays, deductibles, or to buy standard (but not alternative or overthecounter) medical care their insurance does not cover. Add what the various levels of government spend now on health care. You  can provide better coverage for everyone (currently insured or not) than the insured get now.

The secret:
U.S. red tape is about three times medical red tape in nations with government insurance. (Sometimes you higher figures, but those assume away certain administrative expenses common to all health care systems.) Eliminating the difference between U.S. and French or Canadian administrative costs would save one in every five health care dollars.

Price differences: we pay more for the same pharmeucitcals, more for equivalent medical equipment and supplies than other nations.

3)Prevenative care: because people move from insurer to insurer, even though insurers do cover some preventative care, we have less prevenative coverage than other nations. Also people without insurance get treated in emergency rooms, usually after their problems are much worse than they would have been if caught earliers.

Between these three things, a switch to public health insurance can save us 25% to 33% of each health care dollar, most of it in the short term.  Replace core coverage by private insurance with core coverage by public insurance would save money and improve health. Private insurers could still offer supplementary insurance of various types.

I should have added, about half those savings would be used to cover the uninsured. The rest of the savings could improve health care for everybody -those who currently have insurance, and the people a universal single plan system would newly cover.

...from medical insurance payments by employers and fees and monthly payments out of your paycheck from employees, to general government revenues, which i suppose would come out of taxes -- so while you (and businesses) would pay much less monthly overall, conceivably, taxes might go up -- which would be fair, since it would mean less out of your pocket.  

But even that could be cut out of the Pentagon's hide -- although I am not advocating, in this political environment, burdening a universal health plan with that baggage at this point, since there seems to be some kind of consensus to move forward with universal coverage.

The other obvious place to get revenue, by the way, is from repealing the tax cuts, in fact, repealing the Reagan tax cuts to the wealthy, and by filling the loopholes that allow huge corporations to file virtually no taxes.  Needless to say, trying to get money out of the military, corporations, and most wealthy is the most difficult part -- but they control their ill-gotten gains exactly because they are so powerful.

Yes. Something I've said for some time. In fact you could go back to the Carter cuts. Our economies highest sustained rate of growth occurred when marginal tax rates were at 70%. The 90%+ rates before that really were too high.

  Hi Jon,

      I spent some time on military conversion, say, oh 30+ years ago.

      While it seems like a good idea, what happens, in fact is somewhat different than expected.

      Instead of going along with changing direction and converting their military base into a civilian base with no loss of jobs or revenue, presto chango, they instead decide to keep the military base and expand their overall base to include the new civilian projects!!

      So, they fight to keep the military going on, and they fight to get the lion's share of any increased civilian spending (hey, we can always cut schools and aid to the poor to make up the difference!).

      That seems to me to be the problem with conversion (I would love to be convinced otherwise!).

      Part of it is, that the military program is incredibly corrupt.  Which means that lots of people make lots more money than they really should.  And they know it.

      It is one thing to ask people to give up one kind of honest labor for another, but damn hard to ask them to give up a corrupt gravy laden system for honest labor.

      Maybe the best way to work conversion would be to promise them that they could bring their corrupt practices with them to the civilian projects.

    cynically yours,

patrick in Beijing

Yeah, I love your proposals and I agree we should keep the conversation going -- even though we all recognize that massive new government spending probably isn't on the front burner for a new president.  

It's all going to have to be very specifically targeted, and maybe we should be focusing the candidates and next year's new Congress on such specifics, in the same way we're trying to get green spending in the stimulus package now.

BTW, this is a silly point, but I love the quotations and can't resist -- I'm pretty sure Everett Dirksen said "...a million here, a million there..." in the 1950s, and then Fritz Hollings upgraded it to "...a billion here, a billion there.." in the 1970s or 80s.  I haven't actually googled this to confirm. :-)

Two quickies:

 The Department of Defense and DHS runs the largest welfare system in the US.  

 The amount of money spent on failed weapons systems is truly astounding.  Have to heard about the Coast Guard ship that costs billions but they can't take it out so sea because it would break in half?

-sammie

Onward through the fog

  It has not been real money sinse we went off the gold standard. The cash is not worth the money its printed on if the government just cranks out more money to throw at every economic problem. 911 spend money, War in Iraq, spend money, deregulated finiancial institutions run a pyramid scheme, give mortages to a host of people who could not afford them and then sold them to the finiancial institutions, print more money. Recession, print more money. The paper is worth more than the electronic bits of information but not much. Something needs to back up the currency if not the monetary system will fail, if history is any indicator. I suppose somebody else must be losing confidence because the dollar is falling like a brick. God, I hate to quote this man but even Reagan thought it was a bad idea to go off the gold standard.

Ike Warned about the Industrial military complex in 61.

No bid clause for the drugs stuck in the medicare prescription drug bill, now who would have thought that this would become a runaway unfunded liability. I am for the program, just get the drug lobby out DC, this program would have worked if you could stop the drug lobby from writing legislation.

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

people believe what they want to believe

much of what we believe is tied to identity and tribal affiliations

if you link common sense ideas for Green infrastructure to changes that much of the public will consider radical or contrary to their ideas/identities/tribe  [i.e., shrink the military]

then you simply tell them not to listen to your common sense ideas

nibble and move what people consider to be normal slowly left

forget about rational plans for paying for it; let people figure that out later (our usual way)

otherwise, you will quickly and easily be marginalized by cynics supporting the status quo

too bad; I like your specific proposals

There you go ce.  The tribe needs protection, thus the huge defense budget.  What threatens at the moment?

Terrorism funded and impelled by mid east oil reliance.  So take 5% of the military budget and devote it to independence from oil.  Security obtained for a fraction of the cost.

And with clean kwh it costs only 75 cents to go as far as a gallon of gas would take you.  Or with a solar panel on your roof, in a few years of money saving payback of the initial cost of the solar system...  free kwh for your car.

The tribe protected from terrorism and economic decline due to high gas prices.  

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

German reader with the numbers -- This is indeed a very important problem, as I said before, the US doesn't even have any subway companies and when NYC recently spent billions on subway cars no American firm was able to bid.  I doubt any American company could compete with a Siemens or Alsthom or Kawasaki.

If the US had an industrial policy like Korea, this is what we'd do: invite Siemens, etc., to set up factories here for light rail, etc., under some very strict preconditions, especially, train US engineers (this is something the Chinese do as well), and perhaps even stipulate that the factory would revert to American ownership (ideally to the employees) after a period of time.  At this point, politically, Americans don't think we're in the same position as developing countries, but we are.

ce1709 -- again you point out an important problem -- how do you bring up the problem of military spending, the 600 pound gorilla of policy?  Basically, most policies are checkmated unless you bring this up.

I myself am torn about this, for exactly the issues you raise, but I think it's time to at least try to bring up the issue of bringing down the military budget. Time is getting late, and also , as politically grating as it might sound now, we need to at least get the idea out there.

What would happen, in any case, is that some organizations (say, most big enviros) wouldn't mention it, it would be up to other groups to bring demand pentagon cuts anyway.  All I'm proposing, really, is to have a full spectrum of political dialogue, as opposed to what passes for discussion in the mainstream media.  After all, that's what is encouraging about the blogosphere/internet, no?

Yeah, looks like Siemens is doing this already, but me dunno if according to the policy you suggest.

I guess this is the way to go for non-U.S. companies if they want to make bucks from U.S. market: The dollar is falling and quite surely keeps falling. So Europeans will find it difficult to sell their stuff in Euros. Better produce in U.S. and sell for Dollars.

mmmh, the more I think of this, the more I get confused & scared...

This scenario of rebuilding a civilian U.S manufacturing industry does not involve the military industrial complex (MIC). But the MIC would not idly stand by and watch itself deflate. (Before that it would arrange for another presidential assassination...)

Looks like the U.S.-as-we-know-it could well be eaten up by its MIC like the S.U. got eaten up by its MIC (due to Reagan's "ingenious" politics).

The U.S. is a cold war dinosaur that miraculously had survived the cold war (unlike its S.U. twin) - so far.

--Flori (weirdly numbered German)

The oil savinghs from electric commuter rail alone would make a cost of 5% of the military budget worthwhile.  How much more security does a dollar invested in reduction of oil consumption buy..than a dollar invested in oil war(s).

Oil war drives up oil prices, uses up oil supplies, and puts oil at risk from nuclear weapons.  Radioactive oil will not be good.  It creates and expands new jihad movements daily, further eroding security.

Powering cars and trains on clean kwh instead of oil.  That's a dividend for your security seeking tax buck.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

Duuhbya dallied with that awhile back.  

A 10 year plan to be foreign oil free, by switching to clean electric plugin hybrids and electric commuter rail.  that's doable.  Right here on planet earth, USA.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

The whole point of central planning in the Soviet Union -- after the initial construction of their means of production in the 1930s -- was to shovel most of the brains and capital of the economy into the military sector.  The means of production whithered, and bada-bing, they collapsed.

Since the US is much richer, and hasn't had a dictatorship (at least, not yet), it's been harder to preempt quite as much of the economy into the military.  But that process proceeds apace; Melman's first book about this phenomenon, "The depleted society", came out in 1965.

And, yes, the military-industrial complex, the largest and greatest political machine in world history, would continue what it's always done -- scare the devil out of the American public.  But it's really self-defeating, because unless they wake up and smell the coffee (and Melman would occasionally lecture at various War Colleges), the military will eventually decline as well.

Not with the oil and coal lobby writing and buying legislation.

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

   Dear Jonathon,

          I will look at your page, and contact you for reports, thanks!!

          I should make myself clearer.  I am 100% in favor of conversion.  I consider the military industrial complex one of the major obstacles towards solving our problems (environmental, social, you name it).

          And I agree with you 100% that one of the things people should do is get off the net and organize (I used to post about this, but gave up, not much interest in discussing the subject).  

          I became more cynical about the chances of conversion happening after the US Senate voted 99-0 in favor of continued funding for Star Wars Research in the late 1990's.  And of course, post 911, things got worse (hard to imagine!).

          As the real US military budget approaches 1 trillion a year, we begin to end up with a really scary economy.

          Has anyone ever added up the total portion of the US governmental spending (at all levels) spent on military-industrial, homeland-security, police, prisons, private security firms and anything I might have left out?

patrick in Beijing

I'm not sure what Tom's article had to do with your point, but one terrible thought came to me as he riffed on "yes we can" -- it's sort of the opposite side of the coin of "I'm mad as hell and I'm not gonna take it any more", the point of that one being, "whaddaya gonna do about it?" (I don't know if cc is reading this).  So what can we do?   I suppose obama might at least get people thinking about it.

and as far as a sane budget is concerned, as the dollar tanks and china et al. get sick of buying the Federal debt, something will have to give.  I just hope it's not the North Korean solution, as reported in Dale Allen Pfeiffer's "eating fossil fuels", in which millions starved while the military was kept intact.  I think it'll be closer to the British model, a more graceful exit.

Sorry, I thought I had the right story posted, not the whole page -- read the story BELOW that -- the one headed thus:

Tomgram: William Astore, In the Military We Trust

Save the world: Reduce greenhouse gas emissions 5% annually.

Yes we can...use $800 billion out of the military budget to green the economy

Yes we can...replace all coal plants with solar/wind/geothermal energy.

Yes we can...build a high-speed rail network between our cities, and light rail networks within them

Yes we can...plow over the outer suburbs with small-scale organic farms

Yes we can...rebuild our cities with new housing and better schools

Yes we can...have a single payer national health system paid for by rolling back tax cuts of Bush and Reagan

Yes we can...rebuild our manufacturing base by constructing green infrastructure

Yes we can...work with other rich countries to create prosperous sustainable economies throughout the world

"we need you to help us prove that ordinary people can still do extraordinary things in the United States of America"...oops, that was actually Obama, OK, goodnight

But those are truly good suggestions, Jon.  Bravo!

I very much wish you were one of my choices in the voting booth, yesterday!

Chickens are our cousins! So are fish! So are other sentient animals! Let us learn to be kind.

i think is the technical term when talking about reducing war spending.

...I remember Melman trying to convince a professor of economics that military spending constituted a double opportunity cost, to no avail -- it might have had to do with the idea that you can consider the military budget a capital fund, and since no capital is produced in military production (that is, no means of production), you lose both the amount that you spend and the amount that could have been produced with the amount you spend.

Where is this new Henry Ford/Sam Walton/Bill Gates to get this commercial empire started?

Ford raised the wages of his workers above the norm...  so they could afford to buy a Ford.

Follow that model of prosperity, spreading manufacturing into every local area.  And empire is assured.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

Yes, Amazing, that sounds like a fascinating bit of video, definitely worth the attention of Grist.

Colin,
that is an interesting observation about military service and the opportunity to travel.  The "counter-recruitment" poster is one of the great bits of satire in our culture.

My late great-uncle, who served in the Army in Europe during WWII, and was an amateur historian and political scientist, used to say that the widespread military service in the US during that war brought the nation together, mingling all sorts of relatively recent immigrant groups with older, more established types.  Hollywood made it something of a cliche', to include a Southern farmboy and a Brooklyn ethnic guy in the same outfit.

Of course, the mixing of races was a no-no.

Chickens are our cousins! So are fish! So are other sentient animals! Let us learn to be kind.

together with the GI Bill can also be credited with the remarkable opening-up of higher education opportunities in postwar USA.

Of course that was a product of a near-universal draft, very different from the cultural profile of our current military. 'All-volunteer' has such a pretty ring to it, covering some quite objectionable realities.

The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.