At least the bombs are real.
New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof has pulled out the hoariest of boomer liberal tropes, asking what the money spent on war could buy if redirected to welfare programs. Examples include “For less than three weeks of war, or $35 billion, we could run a nationwide pre-K program for 3- and 4-year-olds,” and “For $75 million, about an hour’s worth of war, we could provide three books free to every child in America who is living under the poverty line.” Ah yes, we could fund so many Minneapolis daycares and “Quality Learing” centers.
I don’t know how our campaign against the mullahs will turn out, but it has real bombs being dropped on real targets with people really dying. In contrast, the sorts of programs Kristof promotes as better recipients of taxpayer money tend to be more ephemeral in their results — and that’s assuming that the recipients even exist. To cite a few examples that even a New York Times columnist ought to have heard of, there is the Somali daycare piracy, the California wildlife bridge to nowhere, the California high-speed rail debacle, and the embarrassing spectacle of cities spending endlessly to end homelessness while not even reducing it.
Kristof and his ilk never seem outraged at these wasted and stolen billions. They might mildly tsk-tsk, but there is no visceral rage toward those who plunder billions that were supposedly for helping children. Yet if lefties really believe that government programs are the key to a wonderfully better society and world, shouldn’t they be furious at those running them into the ground or robbing them?
Hellbound and Down 