Saturday, December 12, 2009
The Welfare State and Military Power - WSJ.com
It's pretty obvious that the less money a country has, the less it has for it's defense.
It follows that defense has some fixed costs, so with less money, there is less for other costs.
Apparently, some countries have defense forces, but don't have the money to use them for anything, which almost equates to having a car and no money for gas.
Oh yes, and did I mention that politicians control all of this?...
It follows that defense has some fixed costs, so with less money, there is less for other costs.
Apparently, some countries have defense forces, but don't have the money to use them for anything, which almost equates to having a car and no money for gas.
Oh yes, and did I mention that politicians control all of this?...
In this article, the Wall Street Journal explains:
"The overlooked culprit here is the rise of the modern welfare state. Since World War II and especially from the 1960s, Europe has built elaborate domestic income-maintenance programs, with government-run health care, pensions and jobless benefits. These are hugely expensive, requiring high taxes and government spending that is a huge proportion of GDP. The nearby table compares the so-called tax wedge across nations, which is one measure of the relative burdens to finance cradle-to-grave entitlements.
One consequence has been slower growth in Europe, relative to the U.S. and China, with less tax revenue to spend on everything. Another result is that welfare spending has crowded out defense spending. The political imperative of health care and pensions always trumps defense spending, save perhaps in a hot war. Europe may never again be able to muster public support for a defense buildup of the kind the U.S. undertook to end the Cold War in the 1980s, or even the smaller surge after 9/11.
The tragic irony of this year is that Democrats are rushing the U.S. down this same primrose entitlement path. With ObamaCare certain to eat up several more percentage points of GDP as it inevitably expands, we will take a giant step toward European social priorities."
