is the title of Paul Krugman's column in yesterday's NYT.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/09/opinion/09krugman.html?_r=1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss
It's an excellent article on how cities are literally turning off the streetlights to save money, how teachers and policemen are being laid off, and roads & bridges falling into disrepair. We are all aware of how strapped for money state and local governments are because they are caught in a bind between The Great Recession and the requirement to balance their budgets. I go along with him up to a point. He focuses on the need to increase taxes on the richest 2%. Fine, OK, go for it, increase taxes on the richest 2%, let the tax cuts expire. We will pay more in taxes but we'll survive. What I don't understand is his completely skipping the elephant in the room--What if we weren't funding wars in Iraq and Afghanistan? What if that money was available for lights and education and roads or research for cancer? We are pouring borrowed money into a neverending sinkhole. What's next--Yemen, back to Somalia??
Because we are borrowing the money to pay for the war and have no draft, we feel none of the need to bring these wars to an end.
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