Yes, that is a great point.
But is your point best made with “AND, Glenn, . . .” ?
Or are you pointing out something that I’m still missing?
I’m not trying to start anything here. I was merely trying to get across that even though the percentage of GDP seems tiny, (wouldn’t a sales tax of 2.7% be awesome?) it still represents over 700 Billion USD based on a 2022 GDP of over 26 Trillion.
Your original comment on the 2.7% sounded like (paraphrasing here) “We really aren’t spending all that much on defense.”
But we are. And just a fraction of that diverted to fixing domestic ills could completely wipe out certain societal issues that plague us in the US.
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This is the day to day struggle we have with the Repubs - they are happy to spend on anything except people…
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Right, as if the Rs are saying, “But how will the people who benefit pay us back?”
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Oh, they are quite gung-ho to spend on people- spending taxpayers money to hurt the people they wish didn’t exist.
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Yes, you’re right of course and we’re headed toward a trillion dollar defense budget in a few years.
You make a good point because defense spending is not 2.7% of the budget but of the whole U.S. economy. So it’s a huge number and assume the economy grows, even a constant 2.7% number represents increasing dollars by the billions.
I didn’t intend to imply that we’re not spending much on defense but I see how it could be taken that way. But as a % of the economy (and not including supplemental appropriations per @KKC ) that’s at or near a low over the last 40 years (I’ve read that, not verified it).
I think that with the march to war with China there will be pressure to increase the U.S. defense budget big time and I suppose that statistics like I cited will be used, perhaps disingenuously.
Yes. Like child poverty, pre-K child care, free pre-natal care and education, and the list goes on.
When I was in business school someone asked ‘When is a country’s deficit too much?’ The teacher (later a Nobel laureate) said, and I think he’s right, that aside from issues like whether the country has the faith of the marketplace, the real question is how the money is being spent. If there is a return on investment that exceeds the cost of borrowing then it’s a good thing.
So it seems to me that it’s abundantly clear that the ROI of investing in the health, security and education of the nation’s children (and that is intertwined with the health of at least their mothers [Read Ashley Montagu’s Life Before Birth – an old book but its premise valid; my biggest takeaway was that THE most important part of a child’s life is the first 30 days after conception, so health, nutrition, absence of toxins is paramount during this timeframe, which I’d expand, to be safer, to at least 90 days if not through age 21] if not their parents) has a VERY high ROI.
Of course, for some ‘life begins at conception and ends at birth’ (Barney Frank quote about you-know-who). But even at conception (and you have to start earlier) not nearly enough is done in education, nutrition and heath care to protect everyone in this vital timeframe.
I’m not saying to limit investments to that age group, but investing in our children seems a no-brainer, especially when our birth replacement ratios have really tanked (saved, actually, by immigrants – another story).
I mean even if our ultimate value is money (sad) and not human dignity then this is the investment to make.
A rant to be sure.
They’ll be healthy, earn money, build businesses (it doesn’t take many Steve Jobs’ or Sergei Brins to transform the economy), buy homes, pay taxes, participate in our ‘democracy.’ By and large, they won’t be addicts or a net subtraction to the economy or criminals.
They’ll pay us back HUGE, always have.
But it’s not just about money but also embedded laws that rig the game against the average consumer.
Take a look at this for the effect of Roe v Wade on reducing crime 18 years later.
Not saying that this is why those rights should be protected, but if some want to boil this down to numbers and money they should end up with different opinions, though of course I know that they say they have a different stated concern.
It just seems to me that people who got 600’s on their SATs might respect that some very smart people (on both sides) have different opinions, might respect that, agree to disagree nicely, let it be, and not weaponize government to interfere here.
Reminds me of how single moms on welfare (which I was in Canada for many years) were pressured to “get back into the workforce”. As if raising children isn’t working. No, we’re supposed to pay someone else to raise our kids- that way the stats can show two people employed instead of none. We were supposed to put our kids in daycare or have them become latch-key kids, coming home to an empty home, unsupervised, until mom got home from work, too exhausted to spend quality time with the kids, cook a healthy dinner, or pay attention to what they had been up to. Never did I see any study comparing how the kids who had a stay-at-home parent turned out, as far as becoming functioning members of society, holding good jobs, paying taxes, to those who got in trouble, ended up in juvenile detention, or addicted to drugs because no one was paying attention, and how much that costs society.
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I agree.
The child care credit COULD be designed to be big enough (and without a work requirement) to pay for child care, whether provided by a stay-at-home parent or another facility.
Parents would have the choice.
That’s what we want in the U.S., not the government dictating, but our rights to make choices? Yet here I am, a Democrat, making what had long been a Republican argument.
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Of course I get that, but some conservatives want to see that ROI in the next quarter so they can capitalize on it. They don’t like the nebulous “good for all” concept. They want to know: “How much can I make off this?”
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I know. Greed and envy seem our paramount ‘values.’ And many call themselves ‘Christian.’
Once we were a nation of farmers and understood that you need to plant seeds, fertilize, water and wait.
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The NYT article is depressing but, Its a stretch to equate STR’s with the multi faceted scial problem of homelessness and the very high increase in urban rents. I live in Chicago where politicians periodically talk of rent control as a quick and easy solution. Trouble is, - there’s no quick and easy solution. My heart goes out to those small business owners.
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I grew up in the homeless capital of the US, San Francisco. I guarantee you that short-term rentals aren’t creating a larger homeless problem. The vast majority of the homeless are NOT those that recently rented a house, but now no longer can because the rents have gotten too high. The vast majority of the homeless are not employable, nor do they want to be, and are a completely different group than the group that rents houses. People who rent houses simply move to a more affordable area, which has been made easier now that remote work has become more common.
I do think that the government needs to reappropriate funds to subsidize developers to build more affordable housing, to provide housing for our nurses, policemen, firemen and teachers. The numbers for this kind of housing just don’t pencil out currently for the developer.
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What makes it the capital? Not that it’s relevant, but there it is. As many people know, it’s not most homeless people per capita so what is it?
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I agree.
But in the face of homelessness, rising rents, a shortage of affordable housing, the concern is that some municipalities in the interest of showing that it is doing ‘something’ might include restrictions on short-term rentals in its package of ‘remedies.’
It’s interesting to me that nowhere is the mainstream reports of what to do about a housing shortage do I read about changing landlord-tenant laws that might change the economic calculus for responsible landlords, especially in San Francisco, CA.
Zoning, multiple government agencies – especially in San Francisco – creating long delays and greatly increasing construction costs is a huge issue.
Here’s a very informative article on the SF construction of Tahanan, a “a building that might be the answer to San Francisco’s homelessness crisis”.
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Actually, it didn’t; you didn’t answer my question at all. But nevermind. I withdraw the question since I’m not that invested in the topic at this time.
By one report Washington D.C. is not just our capitol but also is the ‘capital’ of homelessness.
Different reports have different measures, most of which are in absolute terms (not per capita). California is the state with the most homeless in absolute terms, with 30% of all homeless people in CA, a rate of 50+ per 10,000 people on a per capita basis. [LA seems the biggest ‘home’ for the homeless.] This and below from, HUD’s 2022 Annual Homelessness Assessment Report (AHAR) to Congress.
Look at this (there seems to be some inconsistencies in terminology and statistics, but you get the gist):
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Good idea. It was a little splitting-hairs-nit-picky.
I sure do. I taught social studies for almost 3 decades. By the measurements used in this thread, I was the Queen of Social Studies. Anyway, I got my answer indirectly and it confirmed my suspicions. But thanks for your well sourced answer.
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