You know an interesting thing I think alot about? How so much of economic justice organizing is built around the scarcity model. We talk about hating that model, but the constantly make "how come we can afford x, but not y" arguments.

I am VERY guilty here.

It's actually really hard to wrap our minds (and messaging) around the fact that we can afford both a useless billion dollar military helicopter AND healthcare for all. We can afford a ridiculous large steroid driven frat boy police force AND quality schools for all.

Even saying that feels dirty because the argument of "we shouldn't spend our money on x, we should spend it on y" is so powerful. It's how we each make decisions with our personal finances. I could blow my paycheck on weed, but instead I buy housing, food, etc (and weed lol).

But the government does not budget like a household. They aren't actually deducting money from a bank account that will eventually get to zero. That never happens.

Spending priorities are political priorities. We shouldn't spend money on brand new missiles because those missiles are used to kill people in the middle east. It really has nothing to do with cost. We should Defund the police because they are useless. Not to save $.

The limits on this trace back to slavery which I would say is why we allow states to do their on budgets at all.

Because states can't print currency like the federal government can, they do have a limited budget. So statewide invest/divest fights are strategic.

But all in all, we have money. We can do good things with that money. We can do bad things with that money. We can do both! Those fights are primarily political, not economic.