Then you'd be unemploying plenty of military personnel and military-industrial complex workers, and you'd suddenly need many, many more dollars in survival checks.

How does a former LABOR Secretary not know or care about this? https://twitter.com/RBReich/status/1340008769070100480

The reason that this kind of rhetoric infuriates me, as someone who cannot afford to go to the doctor and who really needs those survival checks, is that it NEEDLESSLY encourages so many people, especially those reliant on military employment, to oppose social welfare spending.

At least part of the reason that I get accused of being arrogant and condescending is my impatience in having to explain things that should be obvious, like this:

any serious effort at curtailing military spending will unemploy a great many people.

Therefore, any serious *talk of* drastically curtailing spending will be perceived by people dependent upon military or military-industrial-complex employment as a threat to their livelihoods.

Therefore, positing the enactment of desperately-needed social welfare policies of universal benefit as dependent on FIRST drastically curtailing military spending is a GREAT WAY to undermine support for those needed social welfare causes!

I agree that we need drastic reductions in military spending, but that will necessarily unemploy a great many people.

It's best to build a floor for them - like a Green New Deal - FIRST before trying to make those big reductions.