HERE IS A CONDENSED VERSION OF AN INTERESTING ARTICLE BY FORMER SENATOR GEORGE MCGOVERN GIVING THE PRESIDENT SOME USEFUL ADVICE. THE ARTICLE IN THE SEPTEMBER ISSUE OF HARPERS. CLICK ON THE PDF FILE TO READ THE ARTICLE.
A letter from George McGovern to President Obama
President Barack Obama has inherited a serious economic crisis, but in his first two years in office he has been met with an even worse problem: the rigid opposition of the rival party leaders to national health care and nearly every other proposal he has made.
He has tried to avoid such divisions by publicly explaining his willingness to compromise, but these gestures have been spurned.
In 1963, the defense budget was $51 billion. This was at a time when our military experts felt it necessary to have the means to win a war against the combined powers of Russia and China. Today we have a military budget of over $700 billion, and yet neither Russia nor China threatens us. Nor does any other nation. Furthermore, the terrorist threat we face is not a military matter.
We need a new definition of “defense” that takes into account the quality of our education, the health of our people, the preservation of the environment, the strength of our transportation, the development of alternative fuels, the vigor of our democracy.
The direct and indirect costs of the Iraq war will amount to $3 trillion. This represents nearly a quarter of our national debt. I suspect that the war in Afghanistan will eventually cost another $3 trillion and we still will not have achieved our aim.
SUGGESTED SPENDING REDUCTIONS:
1. We should bring our troops home from Afghanistan this year.
2. We should close all U.S. bases in the Arab world.
3. We should evaluate whether it is necessary to continue other American troop consignments to Europe, South Korea, and elsewhere.
4. President Obama should call the Pentagon to reduce the current military budget of $700 billion—a figure that accounts for almost half of the world’s military expenditures— to $500 billion next year, and then, over the next five years, to $200 billion.
5. The Bush tax cuts for those with higher incomes should be not only re- pealed but reversed; with an increase in taxes for this bracket, the increased revenues could be used to reduce the national debt.
SUGGESTED SPENDING INCREASES:
1. Savings in military spending could be used to launch valuable public investments, thereby creating jobs and stimulating the entire economy.
2. The president should also revive the full provisions of the World War II–era G.I. bill.
3. Another wise public investment would be the expansion of Medicare to all Americans.
4. Another wise public investment would be the expansion of Medicare to all Americans. Some of the recently proposed health-care legislation has been so lengthy and complicated that I am not sure what is contained in it, but we all know what Medicare is. We could reduce the impenetrable legislation to a simple sentence: “Congress hereby extends Medicare to all Americans.” To soften the impact of this expansion on the budget, I propose that the program be implemented in steps every two years over a period of eight years: the first step including children up to the age of eight; the second, those from nine to eighteen; the third, those from nineteen through thirty; and finally, those from thirty-one through sixty-five.
--SINCERELY, GEORGE MCGOVERN
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