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when you say "size" of the government, what are you exactly talking about? The military budget? The amount spent on healthcare? The investment in research? Neol
by throwaway-11-1 1y ago
when you say "size" of the government, what are you exactly talking about? The military budget? The amount spent on healthcare? The investment in research? Neoliberalism has been turning these into funnels to the private sector since Reagan. Like how does free market do anything other than create oligarchs? This language about "government too big" is too vague to be useful in discussion and I just assume it's cover for "punishing the poor and removing social services". ICE has a bigger budget than the Marines and FBI combined, and all the maga chuds clapped like circus seals. I don't know how to have an honest discussion about government policy with right wingers that isn't just a stream of weasel words for culture war.
- sneak 1y agoI’m talking about the entire federal budget, primarily the big ones: federal healthcare and the military and adjacent paramilitary forces (like DHS/FBI/ICE). I also think the state should be entirely out of the education and research business. It of course includes the social services you speak of too, but those are barely a drop in the bucket compared to the public-private wealth transfer that is the military-industrial complex. The president simply isn’t permitted to dismantle it; there are too many stakeholders way more powerful than the holder of that single office that will not permit it.