Common Dreams
Jon Queally
12/03/2019
As progressive lawmakers like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and 2020 Democratic candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders have pointed out, the "how we gonna pay for it" question has become a common mantra among the "elite D.C. pundit" class and "deficit scolds" when public benefits like tuition-free higher education, Medicare for All, and paid family are proposed—but rarely if ever deployed against massive military expenditures like the "ultra-costly, underwhelming" F-35 fighter jet, the $6.4 trillion thrown at the endless "war on terrorism," or these latest Virginia class attack submarines.
"If you're following the presidential race," Lindsay Koshgarian, director of the National Priorities Project at the Insitute for Policy Studies, wrote in a column last week, "you've heard plenty of sniping about Medicare for All and whether we can afford it. But when it comes to endless war or endless profits for Pentagon contractors, we're told we simply must afford it—no questions asked."
