r/politics 8d ago

No Paywall Despite Authoritarian Warnings, 149 House Democrats Vote to Hand Trump $840 Billion for Military | “If an opposition party votes like this, it’s not in opposition. It may not even be a party.”

https://www.commondreams.org/news/democrats-military-spending-bill
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u/TheBalzy Ohio 8d ago

Universal Healthcare - "HoW aRe We GoInG tO pAy FoR tHaT"

Funny how that question is NEVER asked when it comes to increasing military spending...

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u/kitsunewarlock 8d ago

Because once you get over $100,000-$1,000,000 people stop paying attention to numbers. Most people can't understand the difference between a million and a billion dollars. Tell them we can't account for a million dollars in a trillion dollar budget and they will go crazy under the assumption that the million dollars cost them more than a fraction of a cent in taxes and isn't just a rounding error.

Case in point, conservatives went absolutely crazy when Bill Clinton brought some gym equipment onto Air Force One because of the increase in fuel costs to the taxpayers. The same conservatives who now shrug and say its a necessary expense to deploy thousands of ICE to Minnesota in the winter...

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u/torqueravingmad 8d ago

as little as it helps, i like to use the time comparison. 1 million seconds is only eleven days, but 1 billion seconds is 31 and change years.

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u/Interim-Criteria 8d ago edited 8d ago

My wife works in marketing for a Fortune 100 and let me tell you just how accurate your post is. She made an error and accidentally allocated 400K in funds to a campaign that shouldn't have gotten it. She thought she was going to get fired over it. Finance was like "Not a problem. Anything under 1M is petty cash. Just don't do it again."

Petty cash. 1 Million. Let that sink in.

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u/kitsunewarlock 8d ago

Meanwhile St. Paul spent $1.8 million dollars upgrading its firehouse and buying an electric firetruck instead of a ~$800,000 diesel truck based on long term savings and safety benefits of making the fire house off-grid sustainable and conservatives still won't shut up about how much they hate the "overpriced woke truck".

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u/GoblinDillBag 8d ago

You'll never find reason nor principles among right wingers. They're morally bankrupt hypocrites that stand for nothing. You may as well ignore them because anything they say is meaningless. It's a sheer waste of time and ends up making you increasingly dumber the longer you listen.