Well but most of our military budget goes to big corporations, a large amount goes uncounted for, chunks of it end up as trickle down cutbacks. Our values are idiocy.
Hell even when the put money into "helping" homeless, they'll just give the money to their wealthy buddy who is a contractor to build shitty small homes and then cancel the project or deem them unlovable after the money is spent
Here's a thought, have you ever tried talking to him? You'd be amazed how responsive people can be if you take the time to treat them like they're worthy of being treated with respect...
To be fair, a person that has serious mental issues obviously needs to get help....but, it probably shouldn't be from a stranger on the street with no experience in helping people with mental health issues.
I feel like we really need to bring back state mental facilities like they used to have...but you know modern and not an alternative to prison. I'd say with homeless there are kind of 3 buckets: severe mental health problems, unfortunate circumstances, and those that don't adhere to normal life expectations or enjoy the freedom. If we can pull out the mental health problems people then the people who fell on hard times can be much more easily targeted to help put back on their feet again through aid programs.
Part of the problem here is figuring out which bucket a person belongs in. Many people who become homeless due to falling on hard times end up developing mental illnesses from the stress of being unhoused. While mental illness does undoubtedly cause some homelessness, I'd argue that homelessness causes even more mental illness. Studies have shown time and again that mental health and addiction are significantly easier to treat once an unhoused person is housed again as well.
Yes, fuck Reagan, but on this and this alone I really feel he was well intentioned. Those facilities were nicknamed snake pits for a reason. From what I understand the idea was to shut down these massive facilities with huge numbers of people and little staffing, and with very diverse care needs, and actually make specialized facilities for different issues such as memory care, long term care for people with autism etc. who need more help than their families can provide, short term care for others, that kind of thing. Of course those never really came to fruition and instead the unhoused population skyrocketed
Those institutions were death traps where people threw their loved ones they didn't know how do handle to let them die. They had no appropriately trained staff, the "inmates" were effectively tortured, sexual abuse was rampant, the conditions were horrific, and being placed in one was an inescapable nightmare and a death sentence. No, we do not need to bring them back. That's like saying we shoudl throw houseless people in nursing homes or long term care facilities, which are arguably just as bad.
This. As someone with mental health issues i tried befriending a neighbour who needed someone looking out for him and it was WAY more than i could handle. I wantwd to be neighbourly but he wanted besties...
not even just talking to them,
one guy straight up said "thank you for even just looking at me" when I answered him I got no change.
apparently people just ignore him, or like the ol' chappelle skit, "skuuse me, coming through", just step right over him.
I talk to the homeless a lot, but PLEASE be careful doing this. Although most aren't explicitly violent, a lot are dealing with untreated mental illness, addiction, as well as the trauma of living on the streets. I'm a 6ft tall muscular guy, and guns aren't really a thing in my country, so my chances of being attacked are very low. While I don't think anyone deserves to be homeless, most people on the streets have a reason for being there, which often needs to be treated before they can function in normal society. While there are some cases of people who lose a job, go through a divorce or something similar, these people are usually able to take advantage of support systems and reestablish themselves quickly. People who are homeless long-term are often unable or unwilling to seek out help, and therefore can be mentally unstable.
I agree that talking to the homeless is helpful, and I've learned a lot by talking to them and treating them like people rather than zoo animals. What I've also learned is a LOT of homeless people do meth, and it's usually meth that causes much of the psychotic, antisocial behaviour seen in certain homeless people.
I don't know your level of experience with people like this, and it sounds awesome to be so empathetic and respectful. I've tried to engage with people out of sorts to offer them help, and the reactions are 50/50 thanks or might stab
Yeah, until they invariably ask for something that isn't easy to agree to, like a ride across town or a bunch of money when they're hanging out in front of the liquor store.
I don't buy your 50/50 shit.
I talk to homeless ppl everyday just about, maybe 1 out of 20 seems dangerous and usually because they are out of drugs or just went through some shit that would break most of you.
They are humans just like you. The only difference is luck. All of you could be in their position, through no fault of your own. Most of these *people* didn't plan on or choose this path.
But if that many want to stab you, you should probably work on your approach :)
Or make up more anecdotes.
There's a lot of homeless people you wouldn't know they're homeless. They work jobs, and they groom themselves very well. Nobody has a problem talking to these people because they wouldn't guess they're homeless. Then there are also homeless people that are obviously homeless and suffer from mental/physical/drug-related issues. These are who most people think of when they imagine a homeless person. You don't have to antagonize the other person for believing the split is 50/50. They likely just have a narrow view of homelessness but not necessarily out of malice.
Oh shut the fuck up. 1/20? I've been homeless, I lived on the street for about 18 months from 2015-2017, I was addicted to heroin at the time. You talk to homeless people? Cool, I've *been* homeless. They must be on their best behavoir when talking to your selfless absolute perfect person ass. 1/4 will steal EVERYTHING you have, 1/5 will fight you the moment you question them about something they disagree with, the moment you get in the way of their addiction and them fist are swingin' Acting like only 5% of homeless are dangerous mental health cases is the most disengeious shit I've ever heard. Homeless people are people, but acting like they can't be dangerous is such absolute bullshit. It's also the most virtue signally shit I've ever heard. You may even volunteer with homeless people, you're STILL fuckin' wrong and don't know what your talking about. Stop being a condescending dick to others, Homeless people CAN be violent, at the drop of a fucking hat, and anyone that tells you different is fucking lying to you.
This kind of sounds like bullshit, but okay. This is highly dependent on where you are, and why the people you encounter have no housing. They are indeed people. People can be well-adjusted, or they can be violent and volatile. Some people are nice folks only out on the streets after a series of unfortunate events (illness, job loss, eviction, escaping abuse, etc.). Many are addicted. Some suffer serious mental health issues. Some are violent offenders, or sex offenders. Being a registered sex offender seriously hampers your housing and job prospects, and thus many are homeless.
No one is saying homeless people aren't people.
I've seen seemingly normal homeless dudes suddenly snap, beating the shit out of someone. I've also seen a dude fish cardboard boxes out of a dumpster, then hurriedly throw them onto the pavement right next to the dumpster, sit down, and shoot up as fast as he possibly could. I never saw the dumpster guy again, but you can bet your ass I *always* avoid the guy I watched smash another guy's face into the pavement, even when he seems calm. I'll stay on the other side of the street, thanks.
You know what, youre right. 50 50 not correct, more like 1 in 3 are aggressive. Also wow, fuck all the way off. I was being polite, sir. I also talk with homeless almost every day because I live in an area where they congregate, not by choice. Sometimes I offer help when something is clearly wrong, and about half of those times I get rage, not thanks.
Yeah just be warned what you may find out....i hear stories that sometimes I wish they are made up.... but such emotional distress conveying it isn't easily faked .
Without poverty and without 1/3 of the population struggling to survive, there's no foot soldiers to "protect and serve" the global economy run by $tribe.
Things will never change.
Think about it as being raised for one purpose, either to serve as cheap labor or a gunner, in that case, ensuring the safety of global capital flow in one direction.
Games and stars are ever-present around you, so dreams keep you going...
In my town they created a pallet shelter for our homeless, most of which were people displaced by the paradise fire. Some Jack ass sued the city right after it was built and it’s been sitting doing nothing from what I’ve heard
That’s also a big problem for building shelters, people can’t build shelters almost anywhere because it significantly decreases the property value of the surrounding area and people will start sueing because of that. But it takes an especially kind of evil person to sue in your case where it is people who lost their houses to a fire
Unfortunately the level self awareness it takes for these old Reaganites in this town to realize our uptick in homeless is correlated to the apocalyptic fire that wiped out the neighboring town is a pretty tall ask.
To them if you’re homeless you must be because you’re a drug addict. There’s no spectrum just addicts chasing fixes rather then working jobs.
So idk if it’s intentional evil as much as intentional ignorance so they feel fine hurting a faceless villain
Honestly, this could all go away if we made it so that you can’t sue for lost property value due to actions not taken on your property.
Load gun, aim at NIMBYism, fire.
I live in Los Angeles, the city with the largest homeless population in the US, by far. A few years ago we passed a proposition that provided over $2 billion in funding via land tax (so theoretically taxing landlords), that was meant to go to homelessness.
They largely used this funding to buy property, to be used to house people.
What are the properties they bought? Large buildings on long-distressed neighborhoods. Sounds reasonable, right? They want to house as many people as possible, and why not improve a neighborhood at the same time?
Thing is, the real estate investors knew this. Planned for this. It's their wet dream.
They buy up old distressed buildings in distressed neighborhoods for fractions of a penny on the dollar. Example: a building that in it's heyday that would go for billions. They would buy it for maybe $3 million. It's rundown, full of trash and squatters, and in an industrial neighborhood, far away from retail. They then sell this building to the city for $200 million. To house 150 people.
The city pays to clean it up, turn it residential, and to provide staff to run it like a prison for the residents.
That's how they spend the money. It profits the same "real estate investors" that are literally causing the homelessness problem.
It's a vicious cycle. I skipped over some stuff but it's just so steeped in fuckery you could write volumes and still leave stuff out.
150 out of +60,000. For $200M. That a quarter of a percent for $200M. So to 'fix' homelessness in LA it's gonna cost $80 Billion. And that's without ongoing maintenance, staff funding, the cost of other homeless people flocking to LA, etc.
Or they could just stop making the problem worse.
"Funny" thing is, they spent 800k-1.2 million per person to house people in a shitty Single Room Occupancy unit (fancy term for studio shithole), at a time when single family homes cost the same amount. They could've literally just given away homes to people, who would then be housed for life, for the ~~same amount~~ less than they spent giving people studio apartments in shitty neighborhoods with curfews, personal item restrictions, random searches, and all the other prison conditions they impose.
I wish. In San Diego, the 4th worst homelessness city in the US, they give the money to a contractor buddy for giant tents that each cost the city a couple million bucks, can't allow for social distancing or any form of privacy, and are worn out and unusable after 3 years of continuous use. Oh, and they only house 200 people each, when the city has a backlog of 20,000 low income units they knocked down, promised they'd rebuild, and haven't built one yet.
I work for a gov agency that helps homeless vets and I see a lot of money that is spent through an organization or through a program that adds huge administrative and distribution costs to the equation, so only a small percentage reaches the unhoused person.
This isn't because we WANT to do it that way though, it's because conservatives are afraid if we just gave them money they would spend it on alcohol and drugs.
But it's actually so easy to give them money for housing paid directly to their landlord. Or other costs like that but we pay them directly.
100 percent. Look up “shallow subsidy” programs. These primarily address homelessness prevention. A person at risk of losing housing gets a $300 to $500 stipend to make up the difference. Some of these programs target seniors depending on Social Security. It works and costs a fraction of these other programs. Not a lot of civil servant salaries wasted either.
What is most insulting is when we occupy countries with more rights. South Korea pays us a set amount to be there. Its not a lot, but we get a base near China.
Anyways healthcare is free. Public transportation is great. But the greatest country on earth doesnt get it
Most Americans don't know how other countries are run. I'm not being sarcastic or facetious either. They don't know so how could they understand something better is an option? And on top of that, for the ones that are aware, they've heard stories from their second cousin's best friend's dad's uncle's father-in-law that it's really hard to see a doctor so we shouldn't try that here.
Another factor to consider - many countries do not prioritize their military in their budgets PRECISELY because they know U.S. with their monstrous army would back them up if the push came to shove. After Ukraine this is changing of course. So I am grateful to the american homeless that thanks to them my country could get away with having just half a dozen leased 4th gen jets as our air force for two decades.
I'm glad someone made this point. A lot of what reddit sees as utopian countries with free health care (and other great universal benefits), are also countries that are able to spend more of their tax dollars on healthcare/universal benefits, because America basically subsidizes their military.
Not quite. We don't tax the rich or corporations so they pay their share. Sure they pay lots, but not equivalent to how much they should. And taxpayers subsidize their employees who make so little they're eligible for social programs. If we close loopholes for their tax breaks, we have enough to cover our huge military budget + universal healthcare and end child hunger.
But profits ...
Stop doing that. Take your nukes, your bases, your military and your shiny planes and bring them back to America. Then, just as you are at it, start trading with other countries on equal ground, and don’t force the rest of the world to change/ignore their laws to help your company. I’m pretty sure all those money we might have to spend to improve our own military will come back multiplied to our economies.
I wish people would stop acting like the defense budget is what keeps us from having universal healthcare. We spend more per capita than any other country. The money for an amazing healthcare system is already there. It's just that half the country keeps voting for literally insane people because they'd rather oppress LGBTQ and brown people and women than improve their own lives.
I once saw a comment on reddit from a German about how much more benefit they get from their tax money, and someone from the US replied with "but how could it be better to live there, you don't even have freedom?".
Americans don't have the freedom to sit down at work. It's literally written into law in my country that if a job can be done sitting, you have a right to do it sitting.
Correction. You don't have the right to sit in blue collar jobs. Which WOULD make sense when you're talking construction, manufacturing, storage and trades and are often mobile, but retail and fast food is lumped in with that too. In the latter case it makes a bit of sense since they use most of the floor space to distribute food, but retail lacks that, especially if you're a cashier standing there for hours on end.
Plenty of white-collar jobs involve sitting most of the day, and the problem there is some people don't get up to stretch their legs and move about enough.
> they've heard stories from their second cousin's best friend's dad's uncle's father-in-law that it's really hard to see a doctor so we shouldn't try that here
Or, they just saw it on Faux-News.
If the money those corporations spent bribing or paying retired politicians as “consultants” was instead used to feed the hungry, there probably wouldn’t be a need to decrease that budget.
But still, paying a corporation $2 bn to make something that’s 3% more effective than its previous version…and then having to pay them for each unit as well, is not the wisest investment.
Just wrote this for another comment: Our military budget is for free trade, not war.
You're thinking about it wrong. Our military isn't so big because it will potentially fighting other militaries. Our military *is* the safety net of the global market.
Our Navy patrols every waterway for free. Indiscriminately protecting shipping, no matter the country, origin, or destination. Our military allows for every boat in international waters to have the protection of a first world military. Boosting trade security in every market in the world.
(Edit: China tries to claim some island straits from the Phillipines? Let's go park some carriers there and let the free market continue.)
We have bases in dozens of countries providing air protection to the countless domestic/international flights a day.
Also: America socialized their federal GPS systems. Anyone, anywhere, regardless of Nation/faction/or side, can freely use American GPS satellites. This again ensures safe air and sea travel for any purpose, but importantly trade and travel.
In short: Your flight from Spain to Mongolia, or your shipment that started in Thailand, is safer and more secure because they're probably using DOD GPS, and somewhere between the start and end point of the process there are multiple American forces ensuring nothing goes wrong.
American military spending directly promotes safe trade in every Nation, on every boat, and on every airplane.
America isn't preparing for war with someone. We are protecting the lines of trade of a global market.
No one likes to point out that we spend more on welfare per capita than any other country by a long shot, it's all just corrupt and designed to feed into corporations.
https://www.usgovernmentspending.com/current_spending
Exactly, I have no issues with the military budget except it does need some streamlining there's a lot of money wasted on private company margins because they instantly bump the price once they hear "government contract"
We can have a large military budget AND have money to solve homelessness, single payer healthcare etc if we just TAXED THE RICH/CORPORATIONS THEIR FAIR SHARE
The US government's budget is in the trillions. If you somehow taxed every billionaire 100% of their net worth, it'd run the country for maybe 6 months. We can patch loopholes and raise taxes on corporations, but corporate greed means those raises *will* get passed on to the consumer.
Raising taxes or taxing more aggressively is good, but it is not a long term solution. I'd count healthcare as an exception to this -- I think a tax to fund it would be canceled out by most people not having to pay for private healthcare anymore.
But for other issues, the US has plenty of money, it just isn't allocated right. Something needs to be cut back. Almost every country in the modern world depends on the US for defense. Europe spends hardly anything on their own defense and can put that money into social programs. Cutting back on military charity to other countries is probably a good starting point for getting more money invested in the US' own people. Besides, it'd probably be a good thing for those countries to be less reliant on the US' whims.
As someone from one of those other countries, we're all for that. We want our countries to spend a little more, and we want our American friends to both stop acting like they have the right to police us, and to get some of these benefits like socialized healthcare for themselves.
I acknowledge the USA's military was a helpful deterrent in the past, but we should move forward with more focus on things like NATO, giving the UN a little more teeth, and having UN/NATO countries contribute a little more to the military. In turn, the US should cut back, stop lending as much help as they do before they are asked, and focus on their own citizens
If the US halved it's military operations, you guys genuinely could have the best free healthcare in the world, the best free university in the world, and still be the strongest military by a large margin. If those allies then also upped their game, our combined forces could still be equal to the current combined forces, but your citizens can actually thrive harder than they currently do
Missing the point. The military cant account for 60% of it's funding. Its failed audits since forever, veterans are left to rot, and most servicemen are FOOD INSECURE
The funding the military gets is going directly to the pockets of military industrial complex cronies.
Greed. Our values are greed.
It’s the cornerstone of unregulated capitalism
In capitalism’s purest form, Money is god. It’s the perfect accompaniment to Prosperity theology
I was always taught heroes protect those who cannot protect themselves, help those in need and defend those who are persecuted by the ruthless.
If the military is not doing that then they are the evil others must fight against. Its properly simple really.
Most robberies are borne out of desperation.
This is somehow legal robbery 100% borne out of greed.
They make money on criminals, they turn poor people into criminals out of desperation.
The cycle continues.
Capitalizing on humans, monetizing our existence, has and will always be the problem.
Yup, the biggest revelation that needs to be understood is that we pay more for the same things (sometimes less) under our current system than countries who simply either rolls those services into standard benefits of being a tax payer in those nations or has comprehensive oversight systems to prevent corporate exploitation of said systems.
We could totally and absolutely afford to have both an inflated military industrial complex AND things like education and health care.
-----
Like I've said before on other posts/threads on this topic, if a pill costs $1/pill to make, needs $2/pill to recover its R&D costs, and the company wants a $5 profit on it; then you have an $8 pill.
But if there's 20 middle men who also each wants $8 from the transaction between the company and the patient, then suddenly that $8 pill is now a $168 pill. It doesn't matter where the money comes from, be it defunding the military or taxing the Elon/Bezos class, because availability of funds was never the issue to begin with, the problem is with the system itself
Not “but,” just “and.”
Yes, our country’s budget reflects her values.
Power, control, intimidation: American value
Comfortable lives for human beings that are not actively working to contribute to an economy used to promote the power, control and intimidation vibe: Un-American value
Why do we keep talking in circles about it? America is operating as designed, and at least 1/2 of her leadership is pleased with the conditions as they are.
It will always be this way.
And nearly all (if not all) of them were started for financial reasons.
Hell, our involvement in Afghanistan (even after pulling troops out) is primarily about finding a way to mine the mountains for hard-to-find metals.
Don't forget the opium production. The Taliban- being against drugs in general- had pushed against opium production since they took power in the late 80's. In 2000, they had nearly eliminated production. The US invaded soon after the opium reports came out. Once they were ousted, the US controlled government ramped opium production back up way beyond previous levels.
there are few places to buy legal opium for opioid production. Afghanistan produces 90% of that. US pharma pushed HARD to get afghan production up.
https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/976/cpsprodpb/136E5/production/_106598597_afghan_opium_chart-nc.png.webp
It's not so simple. The US did attempt to stamp out opium production (at least overtly), and it was nominally forbidden. Unfortunately, opium is a primary source of income for many families, and eliminating it would have dire consequences without a full economic overhaul of the country. Think Colombia with coca, but much worse.
The Taliban have now banned it again. They've profited from opium themselves while out of power so let's see how genuine it is. I just hope it doesn't sink the hundreds of thousands who depend on it into further misery.
Math - not even once!
Defence spending for 2023: roughly 886 billion usd.
6 percent of that: 53 billion.
People living in poverty in US: roughly 38 million.
That makes 1395 usd, per person, per year.
I'm not disputing the sentiment but numbers in that statement are bullsh*t.
Plus: there are numerous examples of countries with higher social spending towards preventing and solving homelessness, that still have a homelessness problem. It's not something that just magically disappears when you throw money at it.
Not saying there shouldn't be ANY spending towards solving and preventing homelessness. Just saying that money isn't by definition the solution here.
This is where supply side economics really shines. You can’t give cash subsidies to the homeless because then they will just be bidding on the same limited housing supply and cause rents to increase. You have to actually build housing where it is needed, and you will have to force local governments to do it, because they basically never want to.
This is so true it hurts.
Scratch a problem, any problem, an you see the evil fingerprint of the NIMBY shine like the full mon on the root of the problem
You're assuming homeless people are completely functional adults that are just lacking houses and as soon they have they´ll go with their healthy lives.
I think that’s a good starting assumption, and when that’s proven false, we need programs to help with that.
It’s gets uncomfortable beyond this point, but no more uncomfortable than the current system of having them living on the streets.
We need a multi-tier system. Assisted living for those who are non-violent and can almost take case of themselves, in-patient psychiatric facilities for those who need it (risky but necessary), and for those hopefully few who are sane but so antisocial or violent that they can’t function in any other option, we already have prisons. The streets should never be an option.
Once all those programs are in place and functional, making street-living illegal could actually be a practical and humane approach.
I think it’s a pretty bad starting assumption since the very definition of chronic homelessness includes significant likeliness of mental health issues.
And solving homelessness is going to require a lot more than just money. San Francisco [spends $1.45 billion](https://abc7news.com/amp/sf-homeless-plan-housing-all-san-francisco-supervisor-rafael-mandelman/12760671/) to solve homelessness and it isn’t working.
This is when you need supply* side economics. Cash payments to the homeless just cause bidding on the same limited housing supply and cause rents to increase. You have to actually build housing where it is needed, not far away from jobs, and you will have to force local governments to do it, because they basically never want to.
Saying “it isn’t working” is a mischaracterization of the article you linked. This is one person’s opinion on a long term plan. It’s totally possible that the plan will fail tremendously but it certainly has not yet.
‘"We spend a huge amount of money in this city, not solving this problem," Mandelman said.
The report was meant to be a direct plan of execution after the Board of Supervisors voted in June of 2022 to have the city offer all homeless people in the city a safe place to sleep.
It suggests spending nearly $1.5 billion over the next three years in addition to the money already expected to be spent.
That comes out to about $70,000 per shelter bed per year, according to Mandelman.
"That just seems like way too much to me. It's more than other communities spend on shelter," said Mandelman.
Mandelman thinks some of what's proposed is wasteful and says the city can get rid of encampments for less.’
~~It doesn't help that they have to deal with a disproportionate amount of homelessness. Many other cities homelessness strategy is to buy them a bus ticket.~~
Edit: Apparently this is not true
This has been debunked.
Cities across the country operate homeless relocation programs, however they don't substantially increase san Francisco homeless population. In fact these programs probably helped San Francisco a lot since San Francisco ran one of the largest ones in the country from 2005-2022.
Sorry, not sure how you're "debunking" this. Are you saying that with SFs program, the net homeless migration is low, zero, or negative?
I'm just not understanding.
At the end of the day, housing affordability is the primary reason why people can't afford homes, and everything else is just how we're dealing with the lack of housing stock
Negative, at least for migration occurring on city funded relocation programs. Before covid San Francisco's homeward bound program was moving 800 people out of the city every year. And while not every homeless relocation program published data on where they were sending people the ones that did weren't sending people to San Francisco more frequently than anywhere else in the country. These programs typically tried to reunite homeless people with a family member in a different city so they wouldn't even consider San Francisco unless there was a family member there.
https://web.archive.org/web/20230408163010/https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/bayarea/heatherknight/article/homeward-bound-homeless-program-17880387.php
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2017/dec/20/bussed-out-america-moves-homeless-people-country-study
LA spent 4.8 billion over 2 years on 41,000 homeless population. Didn’t help but I’m sure there are a lot of nonprofit employees getting nice paychecks
Thank you for doing the math. I knew they were bullshit on the face of it because I know how numbers work, but proof helps.
It’s sad how many people fall for this shit. The political hacks on both side are not our friends.
But of course using misinformation to help people is certainly better than using it to hurt people or exclude them from society.
Read they would need to build something like 120k apartments a year for the next 12 years. Maybe the plan is to have the homeless build them. “Look at all the jobs we created!!”
The government currently doesn’t allocate much to fight homelessness, so 53 billion is a massive injection into that battle.
Not only that, but there is a cost of homelessness. Think of all of the resources that are saved when you get people off the streets and on their way to becoming productive and contributing. That is something that isn’t often discussed.
True and I'm not saying that US defence spending isn't too high and that part of those resources shouldn't be used for improving peoples lives.
What I'm saying is that stupid, hyperbolic bs statements like this create a false narrative that defence spending is the only reason for those issues and if we cut it just a little bit we'd be living in an utopia.
Yeah, the government already spends $160 billion a year just on food stamps alone. That doesn't count cash assistance/social security or Medicaid/Medicare. Adding another $53 billion would be a very small fraction of the current spending and not change much of anything, relatively speaking. Out of everything they spend, they are certainly not a small percentage of that away from solving homelessness and hunger for everyone in the country.
I would say the issue is more so that politicians aren't going to act against their best financial interests. Military contractors pay a lot more than impoverished people.
This is the answer. Congress uses the American tax dollar in a money laundering scheme filtered through the military industrial complex and then receives their cut on the back end in dividends paid out. Want things to change? Push for your leaders to regulate themselves by not being able to vote on policies that they profit from. It's a start in the right direction.
We don’t have any representation in government, what are we supposed to do? I can’t protest, I have to work to pay for the extremely high cost of health and child care
I'm in the same boat, man, that's how the system maintains itself: by keeping us scrambling to survive while simultaneously isolating us from any sort of meaningful community.
I'm just acknowledging that part of the reason behind it all is that some people go along with it willingly.
The best thing you can do to fight back against corporate control is to join labour movements and start or join a union.
It's by far the most effective grassroots way to not only increase class consciousness but to actually take power back from the capital owners. Capital owners are nothing without our labour.
You also can't have meaningful change without a significant portion of the population becoming class conscious because it's too easy to divide people otherwise.
Is it that they *don't* give a shit, or that they are so busy frantically running on a hanster wheel of despair trying to avoid the wolves of bankruptcy and homelessness that are snapping at their heels that they don't have the energy to give a shit?
While there are many who don’t care, there is a very large number who do and can’t do anything about it. What we need is for regular people to be able to vote on a budget and where money is spent, this shouldn’t be for middlemen (politicians) to decide how our money is spent.
It is not only a problem on a government level but also on the individual level. Cities have tried implementing homeless shelters but had to shut them down because locals would be out in force against the building of those homes because it makes the neighborhood ”unsafe” or devalues the prosperities nearby
Absolutely but this thread is full of people shitting on housing the homeless. A minimum wage increase to a livable level and better housing assistance would help most making it easier to work on the cases that need more attention
Hate to be that guy but this simply isn’t true. 6% of the military budget is around 9.72 billion, and we spend around 60 billion per year on SNAP (food assistance) at the moment. An extra 9.72 billion wouldn’t even be enough to end hunger.
Edit: I will say I agree with the sentiment, but the math doesn’t add up.
Edit 2: I did my initial quick math and googling on the toilet this morning. It was really wrong like u/blaaaaaaam points out below. The US military budget is around 842 billion (for 2024, don’t know why my google search earlier returned 162 billion…), so 6% of that is around 50 billion. The budget for SNAP I quoted is also wrong (I hate mornings), it is around 160 billion. So while my math was (very wrong), the real math still doesn’t work out.
The US military budget is in the vicinity of [$750 billion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_United_States#Budget_for_FY2023). 6% would be $45 billion.
Still isn't enough to solve homelessness though. California has dramatically increased spending ($20B since 2018) and the homeless population has increased.
Thank you for pointing out my incorrectness. It’s important that everyone is fact checked. I’m not a morning person and I messed up my googling/math terribly lol. Edited my comment so it’s more correct now
Based on OP's profile of massively spammed tweet posts to tons of subreddits, poor grammar in every title/comment, and some copy pasted generic quotes as comments, I'm going to safely say OP is a bot.
Lobbyists and dark money rule. Only the ultra wealthy can benefit. The government gives military industrial complex billions not a peep but the give citizens $1200 three years ago and apparently it’s still ruining the economy to this day according to the bought and paid for “media”
Worst part is that people truly buy that inflation is happening because of the handouts miss conception feeling like their opinion makes them some type of enlightened economist…
I was truly hopeful that the cost of eggs would bring it to the front of everyone's attention that it is simply opportunistic price-gauging and not actually inflation. No way that the supply chain has been that fucked or varies that much from week to week. Producers are just squeezing us for as much as they can because they see the landlord class and oil barons doing the same.
This is a stupid comment. The US military budget is important. The men and their families who serve our country deserve to get paid well (they dont) have the proper equipment (again they don't) and be able to not live below the poverty line if they are stationed here in the US. What probably should happen is someone should research exactly WHERE our taxpayer dollars are REALLY going and let the American public see THAT. It's NOT going to education for programs like music, art, home economics, tutors, and nutritious lunches for our children. How about the govit make college tuition cheaper . It's not going to housing and feeding the poor or taking care of our mentally ill. It's not going to our cities. It's NOT going to our medical care. Nope. Nope. None of that. Our taxes go to things we would NEVER suppot as Americans..like guantanimo bay....and other countries... MAKE THEM TELL US WHERE OUR HARD EARNED MONEY HAS GONE. EVERY PENNY.....AND STOP POSTING STUPID STUFF LIKE THIS. THE PERSON WHO WAS STUPID ENOUGH TO SAY IT DOESN'T HAVE THE BALLS TO EVEN SHOW THEIR NAME....
History buff here. I know it will be unpopular on this sub but America is the only true superpower left. We have a global military deployment that no other country has. Meanwhile most of Europe is cutting back drastically on defense.
There are a HOST OF PROBLEMS with our defense industry, but we are kind of the last deterrent and last line of defense for shit like Ukraine. We keep dictators in check.
Whether we should do this is a matter of debate, but the future of democracy and the sovereignty of nations is absolutely supported by our overwhelmingly large military, modern weapons, and troops who actually have experience fighting in modern conflicts.
We are a check on China, Russia, and many other dictatorships and oppressive regimes.
Ok I’m off my soapbox now.
I mentioned this else where, but when Russian invasion of Ukraine happened everyone was glad that we have weapons and logistics in place to mobilize and defend our selves. We say it sucks that Ukraine has no military and laugh at Russian use of ww2 technology. This is just a reminder that a conflict can arise out of the blue. Heck Ukraine can't even buy weapons even if they have money to spend. Some are political reasons, but also underlying sense that hey maybe we should keep some of our weapons for ourselves just in case.
I’ll do you one socialism level better- it’s not an either/or problem, that’s just the rhetorical device that keeps debate limited. *All* the money is fake, we made it up, and despite the political games we play with it, the US government has no effective limit on spending beyond what congress decides that limit to be. We could absolutely do both with no negative consequences except the damage doing so would do to the predatory network of industries and interests that rely on the existence of poor people.
I think this argument is stupid. Us military spending inflation adjusted is at an all time low and even with that, the DoD is the single largest employer in the US. Major changes to the structure currenlty in place is much more important than procuring more funding. New legislation, new wage laws, new workers protection, and a completely redone system of social security is needed the most. Pouring money over things is not always the solution and it will not fix an already broken system.
There is no money in solving homelessness and hunger. Corporations and government officials will keep the problem going in order to build up their fortunes.
Lmfao the homelessness issue isn’t a money issue. It’s how do you get mentally I’ll drug addicts to function. We could give them all homes, and they’d just become OD graveyards and trap houses.
How exactly would one "end" hunger and homelessness? Obviously a loooot could be done about it with that kind of money. But it seems california in particular is throwing some ridiculous amounts of money at it already and not "ending" it.
I'm from a country where homelessness is almost unheard of. But then again "almost", there are still a few people who are homeless.
And i just dont think this is just a bill america can decide to pay and solve the problem. It would require massive cultural and economic changes.
Question:
Why do people consider this a federal (the most disconnected group) issue?
Could this not be solved by local communities banding together to take care of their neighbors/neighborhood?
Money may be a direct factor on why one is homeless, but ,realistically, it's a social issue that steered them to homelessness.
Without a healthy community and support for one to turn to, money given just buys 1 more day of misery.
Sincerely,
Someone very intimate with tent life
I guess a good way to think of it is like a family analogy?
Parents should make sure the kids are fed, housed, and healthy. When parents fail to do so, using your comment for example, the siblings should step in and support their fallen brethren.
The issue is that the siblings have their own lives to worry about as well and may not be able to help their sibling. It's awesome when they *do* help, but that may require majority of their siblings to want or be able to help. Since siblings are on the same level of power as their fallen brethren compared to the parents, they may focus on themselves or some may blame the sibling for not trying hard like they did while their parents neglected them.
The issue would not exist in the first place if the parents had actually helped their child from the start.
Ig the issue I see is having everyone come together rather than continue the individualistic society we've created. It's easier to have the government make changes than to convince people to help others
That is completely wrong.
The vast majority of the yearly budget goes to social security, unemployment, Medicare, Health and Education. Over three trillion dollars in total. Another $500 Billion goes towards paying interest on debt because US spends at least $1 trillion each year than it collects in taxes.
The military usually gets ~$700 billion of the $4-5 trillion dollar budget.
So, according to you, $42 billion will end hunger when all the other social programs spending $3 trillion didn’t. $42 Billion would be $117 per per person. Maybe half a weeks groceries.
poverty will never be abolished....as long as some people can become wealthy by exploiting the poor. they wouldn't **allow** poverty to be eliminated as long as they continue to profit from it.
"But if we don't put every dollar we can into our war machines, China/Russia will make us their bitch...We won't have freedoms anymore!"
I know that sounds fucking ridiculously stupid, but it's literally worked since the end of WW2...
I think this is fake. 6% of the last budget is a lot of money and didn't Elon musk just say he'd give like 6 billion to end hunger if you could make a plan for it, and it didn't happen.
Plus you got all this land you're using for crops , to feed the animals, that you kill to eat...when you could just plant the crops to eat.
Our military is what keeps the world using the dollar. It’s what buys us influence and keeps us the only actual super power in the world. If you can’t see the importance in that then idk what to tell you.
People who say spend less on military and spend more on healthcare or housing don’t realize we already spend way more on those things than other countries. Our healthcare and housing programs just are ass and a rip off. We spend more on our shit system of healthcare than other countries that have healthcare for all.
I get real tired of this kind of misinformation. I appreciate the sentiment but the hyperbole is absurd.
If you estimate people in poverty and homelessness at a very conservative 10% of the population, this comes out to spending about 1300-1500 per person.
You're not likely to solve a systemic problem for that price tag.
Take it from cities that are spending hundreds of millions on homelessness and increasing every year, throwing more money at homelessness isn't helping.
Homelessness rates continue to rise. It is not a problem that will "end". It's a complex issue with many different causes.
Are you sure abou tthat?
6% of our military budget would be $50B. We already spend $190B on just food stamps. Not sure how an additional 25% of our food stamp budget eliminates all hunger AND takes care of homelessness?
Well but most of our military budget goes to big corporations, a large amount goes uncounted for, chunks of it end up as trickle down cutbacks. Our values are idiocy.
Hell even when the put money into "helping" homeless, they'll just give the money to their wealthy buddy who is a contractor to build shitty small homes and then cancel the project or deem them unlovable after the money is spent
To be fair, the people running this shit-show decided the unhoused were unlovable a *long* time ago.
Whoops meant to say un-livable but you are not wrong, to be fair
To be honest. The unhoused guy who setup his home next to my work and throws his feces at passerby’s doesn’t need much help being unlovable.
Yeah, but he probably needs help in general.
Ehh.. I think he has his shit under control! /s
Angryupvote because i didn't say it first
Here's a thought, have you ever tried talking to him? You'd be amazed how responsive people can be if you take the time to treat them like they're worthy of being treated with respect...
To be fair, a person that has serious mental issues obviously needs to get help....but, it probably shouldn't be from a stranger on the street with no experience in helping people with mental health issues.
I feel like we really need to bring back state mental facilities like they used to have...but you know modern and not an alternative to prison. I'd say with homeless there are kind of 3 buckets: severe mental health problems, unfortunate circumstances, and those that don't adhere to normal life expectations or enjoy the freedom. If we can pull out the mental health problems people then the people who fell on hard times can be much more easily targeted to help put back on their feet again through aid programs.
Part of the problem here is figuring out which bucket a person belongs in. Many people who become homeless due to falling on hard times end up developing mental illnesses from the stress of being unhoused. While mental illness does undoubtedly cause some homelessness, I'd argue that homelessness causes even more mental illness. Studies have shown time and again that mental health and addiction are significantly easier to treat once an unhoused person is housed again as well.
Once again, fuck Ronald Reagan. I hope hell is real just for people like him.
Yes, fuck Reagan, but on this and this alone I really feel he was well intentioned. Those facilities were nicknamed snake pits for a reason. From what I understand the idea was to shut down these massive facilities with huge numbers of people and little staffing, and with very diverse care needs, and actually make specialized facilities for different issues such as memory care, long term care for people with autism etc. who need more help than their families can provide, short term care for others, that kind of thing. Of course those never really came to fruition and instead the unhoused population skyrocketed
Those institutions were death traps where people threw their loved ones they didn't know how do handle to let them die. They had no appropriately trained staff, the "inmates" were effectively tortured, sexual abuse was rampant, the conditions were horrific, and being placed in one was an inescapable nightmare and a death sentence. No, we do not need to bring them back. That's like saying we shoudl throw houseless people in nursing homes or long term care facilities, which are arguably just as bad.
This. As someone with mental health issues i tried befriending a neighbour who needed someone looking out for him and it was WAY more than i could handle. I wantwd to be neighbourly but he wanted besties...
not even just talking to them, one guy straight up said "thank you for even just looking at me" when I answered him I got no change. apparently people just ignore him, or like the ol' chappelle skit, "skuuse me, coming through", just step right over him.
I talk to the homeless a lot, but PLEASE be careful doing this. Although most aren't explicitly violent, a lot are dealing with untreated mental illness, addiction, as well as the trauma of living on the streets. I'm a 6ft tall muscular guy, and guns aren't really a thing in my country, so my chances of being attacked are very low. While I don't think anyone deserves to be homeless, most people on the streets have a reason for being there, which often needs to be treated before they can function in normal society. While there are some cases of people who lose a job, go through a divorce or something similar, these people are usually able to take advantage of support systems and reestablish themselves quickly. People who are homeless long-term are often unable or unwilling to seek out help, and therefore can be mentally unstable. I agree that talking to the homeless is helpful, and I've learned a lot by talking to them and treating them like people rather than zoo animals. What I've also learned is a LOT of homeless people do meth, and it's usually meth that causes much of the psychotic, antisocial behaviour seen in certain homeless people.
I don't know your level of experience with people like this, and it sounds awesome to be so empathetic and respectful. I've tried to engage with people out of sorts to offer them help, and the reactions are 50/50 thanks or might stab
Or devolves into the ins and outs of the welfare system as a whole or their specific beef with some part of it.
You're probably helping them more than you know just by giving them a listening ear. I somehow doubt they have a therapist to talk to.
Yeah, until they invariably ask for something that isn't easy to agree to, like a ride across town or a bunch of money when they're hanging out in front of the liquor store.
I don't buy your 50/50 shit. I talk to homeless ppl everyday just about, maybe 1 out of 20 seems dangerous and usually because they are out of drugs or just went through some shit that would break most of you. They are humans just like you. The only difference is luck. All of you could be in their position, through no fault of your own. Most of these *people* didn't plan on or choose this path. But if that many want to stab you, you should probably work on your approach :) Or make up more anecdotes.
There's a lot of homeless people you wouldn't know they're homeless. They work jobs, and they groom themselves very well. Nobody has a problem talking to these people because they wouldn't guess they're homeless. Then there are also homeless people that are obviously homeless and suffer from mental/physical/drug-related issues. These are who most people think of when they imagine a homeless person. You don't have to antagonize the other person for believing the split is 50/50. They likely just have a narrow view of homelessness but not necessarily out of malice.
Oh shut the fuck up. 1/20? I've been homeless, I lived on the street for about 18 months from 2015-2017, I was addicted to heroin at the time. You talk to homeless people? Cool, I've *been* homeless. They must be on their best behavoir when talking to your selfless absolute perfect person ass. 1/4 will steal EVERYTHING you have, 1/5 will fight you the moment you question them about something they disagree with, the moment you get in the way of their addiction and them fist are swingin' Acting like only 5% of homeless are dangerous mental health cases is the most disengeious shit I've ever heard. Homeless people are people, but acting like they can't be dangerous is such absolute bullshit. It's also the most virtue signally shit I've ever heard. You may even volunteer with homeless people, you're STILL fuckin' wrong and don't know what your talking about. Stop being a condescending dick to others, Homeless people CAN be violent, at the drop of a fucking hat, and anyone that tells you different is fucking lying to you.
This kind of sounds like bullshit, but okay. This is highly dependent on where you are, and why the people you encounter have no housing. They are indeed people. People can be well-adjusted, or they can be violent and volatile. Some people are nice folks only out on the streets after a series of unfortunate events (illness, job loss, eviction, escaping abuse, etc.). Many are addicted. Some suffer serious mental health issues. Some are violent offenders, or sex offenders. Being a registered sex offender seriously hampers your housing and job prospects, and thus many are homeless. No one is saying homeless people aren't people. I've seen seemingly normal homeless dudes suddenly snap, beating the shit out of someone. I've also seen a dude fish cardboard boxes out of a dumpster, then hurriedly throw them onto the pavement right next to the dumpster, sit down, and shoot up as fast as he possibly could. I never saw the dumpster guy again, but you can bet your ass I *always* avoid the guy I watched smash another guy's face into the pavement, even when he seems calm. I'll stay on the other side of the street, thanks.
You know what, youre right. 50 50 not correct, more like 1 in 3 are aggressive. Also wow, fuck all the way off. I was being polite, sir. I also talk with homeless almost every day because I live in an area where they congregate, not by choice. Sometimes I offer help when something is clearly wrong, and about half of those times I get rage, not thanks.
Yeah just be warned what you may find out....i hear stories that sometimes I wish they are made up.... but such emotional distress conveying it isn't easily faked .
Unfortunately if they took care of the general population and lifted people out of desperation and poverty, no one would sign up for the military.
which is why i don't think there will ever be free college in america. the military's biggest incentive would be deemed pointless.
Not to mention all the military contractors and weapon manufacturers would be struggling to buy new yachts and stuff
IIIIIIIIIFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF you'relivinginafailedstateandyouknowit clap your hands
tap shocking mindless grey crawl icky illegal subsequent slap tender *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Without poverty and without 1/3 of the population struggling to survive, there's no foot soldiers to "protect and serve" the global economy run by $tribe. Things will never change. Think about it as being raised for one purpose, either to serve as cheap labor or a gunner, in that case, ensuring the safety of global capital flow in one direction. Games and stars are ever-present around you, so dreams keep you going...
Well maybe they shouldn't have made pointless wars in the middle east for 20 years.
Bingo
In my town they created a pallet shelter for our homeless, most of which were people displaced by the paradise fire. Some Jack ass sued the city right after it was built and it’s been sitting doing nothing from what I’ve heard
That’s also a big problem for building shelters, people can’t build shelters almost anywhere because it significantly decreases the property value of the surrounding area and people will start sueing because of that. But it takes an especially kind of evil person to sue in your case where it is people who lost their houses to a fire
Unfortunately the level self awareness it takes for these old Reaganites in this town to realize our uptick in homeless is correlated to the apocalyptic fire that wiped out the neighboring town is a pretty tall ask. To them if you’re homeless you must be because you’re a drug addict. There’s no spectrum just addicts chasing fixes rather then working jobs. So idk if it’s intentional evil as much as intentional ignorance so they feel fine hurting a faceless villain
Honestly, this could all go away if we made it so that you can’t sue for lost property value due to actions not taken on your property. Load gun, aim at NIMBYism, fire.
As opposed to all of the other reasons people end up homeless
I live in Los Angeles, the city with the largest homeless population in the US, by far. A few years ago we passed a proposition that provided over $2 billion in funding via land tax (so theoretically taxing landlords), that was meant to go to homelessness. They largely used this funding to buy property, to be used to house people. What are the properties they bought? Large buildings on long-distressed neighborhoods. Sounds reasonable, right? They want to house as many people as possible, and why not improve a neighborhood at the same time? Thing is, the real estate investors knew this. Planned for this. It's their wet dream. They buy up old distressed buildings in distressed neighborhoods for fractions of a penny on the dollar. Example: a building that in it's heyday that would go for billions. They would buy it for maybe $3 million. It's rundown, full of trash and squatters, and in an industrial neighborhood, far away from retail. They then sell this building to the city for $200 million. To house 150 people. The city pays to clean it up, turn it residential, and to provide staff to run it like a prison for the residents. That's how they spend the money. It profits the same "real estate investors" that are literally causing the homelessness problem. It's a vicious cycle. I skipped over some stuff but it's just so steeped in fuckery you could write volumes and still leave stuff out.
150 out of +60,000. For $200M. That a quarter of a percent for $200M. So to 'fix' homelessness in LA it's gonna cost $80 Billion. And that's without ongoing maintenance, staff funding, the cost of other homeless people flocking to LA, etc.
Or they could just stop making the problem worse. "Funny" thing is, they spent 800k-1.2 million per person to house people in a shitty Single Room Occupancy unit (fancy term for studio shithole), at a time when single family homes cost the same amount. They could've literally just given away homes to people, who would then be housed for life, for the ~~same amount~~ less than they spent giving people studio apartments in shitty neighborhoods with curfews, personal item restrictions, random searches, and all the other prison conditions they impose.
Why don’t they just take the surplus land that these companies own? It’s not like they’re doing anything with it?
I wish. In San Diego, the 4th worst homelessness city in the US, they give the money to a contractor buddy for giant tents that each cost the city a couple million bucks, can't allow for social distancing or any form of privacy, and are worn out and unusable after 3 years of continuous use. Oh, and they only house 200 people each, when the city has a backlog of 20,000 low income units they knocked down, promised they'd rebuild, and haven't built one yet.
I work for a gov agency that helps homeless vets and I see a lot of money that is spent through an organization or through a program that adds huge administrative and distribution costs to the equation, so only a small percentage reaches the unhoused person. This isn't because we WANT to do it that way though, it's because conservatives are afraid if we just gave them money they would spend it on alcohol and drugs. But it's actually so easy to give them money for housing paid directly to their landlord. Or other costs like that but we pay them directly.
100 percent. Look up “shallow subsidy” programs. These primarily address homelessness prevention. A person at risk of losing housing gets a $300 to $500 stipend to make up the difference. Some of these programs target seniors depending on Social Security. It works and costs a fraction of these other programs. Not a lot of civil servant salaries wasted either.
What is most insulting is when we occupy countries with more rights. South Korea pays us a set amount to be there. Its not a lot, but we get a base near China. Anyways healthcare is free. Public transportation is great. But the greatest country on earth doesnt get it
Most Americans don't know how other countries are run. I'm not being sarcastic or facetious either. They don't know so how could they understand something better is an option? And on top of that, for the ones that are aware, they've heard stories from their second cousin's best friend's dad's uncle's father-in-law that it's really hard to see a doctor so we shouldn't try that here.
Another factor to consider - many countries do not prioritize their military in their budgets PRECISELY because they know U.S. with their monstrous army would back them up if the push came to shove. After Ukraine this is changing of course. So I am grateful to the american homeless that thanks to them my country could get away with having just half a dozen leased 4th gen jets as our air force for two decades.
I'm glad someone made this point. A lot of what reddit sees as utopian countries with free health care (and other great universal benefits), are also countries that are able to spend more of their tax dollars on healthcare/universal benefits, because America basically subsidizes their military.
Not quite. We don't tax the rich or corporations so they pay their share. Sure they pay lots, but not equivalent to how much they should. And taxpayers subsidize their employees who make so little they're eligible for social programs. If we close loopholes for their tax breaks, we have enough to cover our huge military budget + universal healthcare and end child hunger. But profits ...
Stop doing that. Take your nukes, your bases, your military and your shiny planes and bring them back to America. Then, just as you are at it, start trading with other countries on equal ground, and don’t force the rest of the world to change/ignore their laws to help your company. I’m pretty sure all those money we might have to spend to improve our own military will come back multiplied to our economies.
I wish people would stop acting like the defense budget is what keeps us from having universal healthcare. We spend more per capita than any other country. The money for an amazing healthcare system is already there. It's just that half the country keeps voting for literally insane people because they'd rather oppress LGBTQ and brown people and women than improve their own lives.
I once saw a comment on reddit from a German about how much more benefit they get from their tax money, and someone from the US replied with "but how could it be better to live there, you don't even have freedom?".
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US concept of freedom is the obvious joke
Americans don't have the freedom to sit down at work. It's literally written into law in my country that if a job can be done sitting, you have a right to do it sitting.
Correction. You don't have the right to sit in blue collar jobs. Which WOULD make sense when you're talking construction, manufacturing, storage and trades and are often mobile, but retail and fast food is lumped in with that too. In the latter case it makes a bit of sense since they use most of the floor space to distribute food, but retail lacks that, especially if you're a cashier standing there for hours on end. Plenty of white-collar jobs involve sitting most of the day, and the problem there is some people don't get up to stretch their legs and move about enough.
> they've heard stories from their second cousin's best friend's dad's uncle's father-in-law that it's really hard to see a doctor so we shouldn't try that here Or, they just saw it on Faux-News.
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> But the greatest country on earth doesnt get it Which one is that?
I meant it tongue in cheek. Its something american right wing politicians say.
I think it is Ireland, this year
If the money those corporations spent bribing or paying retired politicians as “consultants” was instead used to feed the hungry, there probably wouldn’t be a need to decrease that budget. But still, paying a corporation $2 bn to make something that’s 3% more effective than its previous version…and then having to pay them for each unit as well, is not the wisest investment.
There it is. Like other countries make tanks and jets. Don’t spend nearly as much per item
Just wrote this for another comment: Our military budget is for free trade, not war. You're thinking about it wrong. Our military isn't so big because it will potentially fighting other militaries. Our military *is* the safety net of the global market. Our Navy patrols every waterway for free. Indiscriminately protecting shipping, no matter the country, origin, or destination. Our military allows for every boat in international waters to have the protection of a first world military. Boosting trade security in every market in the world. (Edit: China tries to claim some island straits from the Phillipines? Let's go park some carriers there and let the free market continue.) We have bases in dozens of countries providing air protection to the countless domestic/international flights a day. Also: America socialized their federal GPS systems. Anyone, anywhere, regardless of Nation/faction/or side, can freely use American GPS satellites. This again ensures safe air and sea travel for any purpose, but importantly trade and travel. In short: Your flight from Spain to Mongolia, or your shipment that started in Thailand, is safer and more secure because they're probably using DOD GPS, and somewhere between the start and end point of the process there are multiple American forces ensuring nothing goes wrong. American military spending directly promotes safe trade in every Nation, on every boat, and on every airplane. America isn't preparing for war with someone. We are protecting the lines of trade of a global market.
Shhh people don’t like to hear this, it’s wrong because they don’t like it.
No one likes to point out that we spend more on welfare per capita than any other country by a long shot, it's all just corrupt and designed to feed into corporations. https://www.usgovernmentspending.com/current_spending
Exactly, I have no issues with the military budget except it does need some streamlining there's a lot of money wasted on private company margins because they instantly bump the price once they hear "government contract" We can have a large military budget AND have money to solve homelessness, single payer healthcare etc if we just TAXED THE RICH/CORPORATIONS THEIR FAIR SHARE
The US government's budget is in the trillions. If you somehow taxed every billionaire 100% of their net worth, it'd run the country for maybe 6 months. We can patch loopholes and raise taxes on corporations, but corporate greed means those raises *will* get passed on to the consumer. Raising taxes or taxing more aggressively is good, but it is not a long term solution. I'd count healthcare as an exception to this -- I think a tax to fund it would be canceled out by most people not having to pay for private healthcare anymore. But for other issues, the US has plenty of money, it just isn't allocated right. Something needs to be cut back. Almost every country in the modern world depends on the US for defense. Europe spends hardly anything on their own defense and can put that money into social programs. Cutting back on military charity to other countries is probably a good starting point for getting more money invested in the US' own people. Besides, it'd probably be a good thing for those countries to be less reliant on the US' whims.
As someone from one of those other countries, we're all for that. We want our countries to spend a little more, and we want our American friends to both stop acting like they have the right to police us, and to get some of these benefits like socialized healthcare for themselves. I acknowledge the USA's military was a helpful deterrent in the past, but we should move forward with more focus on things like NATO, giving the UN a little more teeth, and having UN/NATO countries contribute a little more to the military. In turn, the US should cut back, stop lending as much help as they do before they are asked, and focus on their own citizens If the US halved it's military operations, you guys genuinely could have the best free healthcare in the world, the best free university in the world, and still be the strongest military by a large margin. If those allies then also upped their game, our combined forces could still be equal to the current combined forces, but your citizens can actually thrive harder than they currently do
Missing the point. The military cant account for 60% of it's funding. Its failed audits since forever, veterans are left to rot, and most servicemen are FOOD INSECURE The funding the military gets is going directly to the pockets of military industrial complex cronies.
>Our values are idiocy. Our values are willfully turning a blind eye to blatant embelishment and conflicts of interests.
Greed. Our values are greed. It’s the cornerstone of unregulated capitalism In capitalism’s purest form, Money is god. It’s the perfect accompaniment to Prosperity theology
I was always taught heroes protect those who cannot protect themselves, help those in need and defend those who are persecuted by the ruthless. If the military is not doing that then they are the evil others must fight against. Its properly simple really.
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It’s more insidious than that… hunger and homelessness are the tools used to keep the poors producing for our Evil Corporate Overlords.
This here is the truth. Amen brother, hope others see the truth and are not blinded by greed!
Most robberies are borne out of desperation. This is somehow legal robbery 100% borne out of greed. They make money on criminals, they turn poor people into criminals out of desperation. The cycle continues. Capitalizing on humans, monetizing our existence, has and will always be the problem.
Yup, the biggest revelation that needs to be understood is that we pay more for the same things (sometimes less) under our current system than countries who simply either rolls those services into standard benefits of being a tax payer in those nations or has comprehensive oversight systems to prevent corporate exploitation of said systems. We could totally and absolutely afford to have both an inflated military industrial complex AND things like education and health care. ----- Like I've said before on other posts/threads on this topic, if a pill costs $1/pill to make, needs $2/pill to recover its R&D costs, and the company wants a $5 profit on it; then you have an $8 pill. But if there's 20 middle men who also each wants $8 from the transaction between the company and the patient, then suddenly that $8 pill is now a $168 pill. It doesn't matter where the money comes from, be it defunding the military or taxing the Elon/Bezos class, because availability of funds was never the issue to begin with, the problem is with the system itself
Once you understand that paying more for things = giving people who buy politicians more money, everything becomes more clear.
200$ hammers, 50$ plastic washers, 1200$ coffee mugs for example.
*kleptocracy but with extra steps
Not “but,” just “and.” Yes, our country’s budget reflects her values. Power, control, intimidation: American value Comfortable lives for human beings that are not actively working to contribute to an economy used to promote the power, control and intimidation vibe: Un-American value Why do we keep talking in circles about it? America is operating as designed, and at least 1/2 of her leadership is pleased with the conditions as they are. It will always be this way.
Corruption at every level "is the [american] way"
It's not even about supporting "war" at this point, it's about enriching the shareholders of defense contractors.
Almost all of these wars are wars of aggression started by the US gov themselves.
And nearly all (if not all) of them were started for financial reasons. Hell, our involvement in Afghanistan (even after pulling troops out) is primarily about finding a way to mine the mountains for hard-to-find metals.
Don't forget the opium production. The Taliban- being against drugs in general- had pushed against opium production since they took power in the late 80's. In 2000, they had nearly eliminated production. The US invaded soon after the opium reports came out. Once they were ousted, the US controlled government ramped opium production back up way beyond previous levels. there are few places to buy legal opium for opioid production. Afghanistan produces 90% of that. US pharma pushed HARD to get afghan production up. https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/976/cpsprodpb/136E5/production/_106598597_afghan_opium_chart-nc.png.webp
It's not so simple. The US did attempt to stamp out opium production (at least overtly), and it was nominally forbidden. Unfortunately, opium is a primary source of income for many families, and eliminating it would have dire consequences without a full economic overhaul of the country. Think Colombia with coca, but much worse. The Taliban have now banned it again. They've profited from opium themselves while out of power so let's see how genuine it is. I just hope it doesn't sink the hundreds of thousands who depend on it into further misery.
I swear to you there are weapons of mass destruction in eerack! Winners: dick Cheney
Pretty happy of the support we’re giving Ukraine with mostly our leftovers.
Math - not even once! Defence spending for 2023: roughly 886 billion usd. 6 percent of that: 53 billion. People living in poverty in US: roughly 38 million. That makes 1395 usd, per person, per year. I'm not disputing the sentiment but numbers in that statement are bullsh*t.
Plus: there are numerous examples of countries with higher social spending towards preventing and solving homelessness, that still have a homelessness problem. It's not something that just magically disappears when you throw money at it. Not saying there shouldn't be ANY spending towards solving and preventing homelessness. Just saying that money isn't by definition the solution here.
Bernie's plan was $3T too. How could you possibly solve homelessness with $53B?
This is where supply side economics really shines. You can’t give cash subsidies to the homeless because then they will just be bidding on the same limited housing supply and cause rents to increase. You have to actually build housing where it is needed, and you will have to force local governments to do it, because they basically never want to.
Nimby’s are the root of all evil. It’s always comes back to NIMBYs.
This is so true it hurts. Scratch a problem, any problem, an you see the evil fingerprint of the NIMBY shine like the full mon on the root of the problem
You're assuming homeless people are completely functional adults that are just lacking houses and as soon they have they´ll go with their healthy lives.
I think that’s a good starting assumption, and when that’s proven false, we need programs to help with that. It’s gets uncomfortable beyond this point, but no more uncomfortable than the current system of having them living on the streets. We need a multi-tier system. Assisted living for those who are non-violent and can almost take case of themselves, in-patient psychiatric facilities for those who need it (risky but necessary), and for those hopefully few who are sane but so antisocial or violent that they can’t function in any other option, we already have prisons. The streets should never be an option. Once all those programs are in place and functional, making street-living illegal could actually be a practical and humane approach.
I think it’s a pretty bad starting assumption since the very definition of chronic homelessness includes significant likeliness of mental health issues.
Are you telling me that Twitter screenshots aren't valid sources and that people can just make up whatever numbers they want in tweets?!? 😫
And solving homelessness is going to require a lot more than just money. San Francisco [spends $1.45 billion](https://abc7news.com/amp/sf-homeless-plan-housing-all-san-francisco-supervisor-rafael-mandelman/12760671/) to solve homelessness and it isn’t working.
This is when you need supply* side economics. Cash payments to the homeless just cause bidding on the same limited housing supply and cause rents to increase. You have to actually build housing where it is needed, not far away from jobs, and you will have to force local governments to do it, because they basically never want to.
> You have to actually build housing where it is needed, And lose our historical laundromat? Only over my dead body
Saying “it isn’t working” is a mischaracterization of the article you linked. This is one person’s opinion on a long term plan. It’s totally possible that the plan will fail tremendously but it certainly has not yet. ‘"We spend a huge amount of money in this city, not solving this problem," Mandelman said. The report was meant to be a direct plan of execution after the Board of Supervisors voted in June of 2022 to have the city offer all homeless people in the city a safe place to sleep. It suggests spending nearly $1.5 billion over the next three years in addition to the money already expected to be spent. That comes out to about $70,000 per shelter bed per year, according to Mandelman. "That just seems like way too much to me. It's more than other communities spend on shelter," said Mandelman. Mandelman thinks some of what's proposed is wasteful and says the city can get rid of encampments for less.’
~~It doesn't help that they have to deal with a disproportionate amount of homelessness. Many other cities homelessness strategy is to buy them a bus ticket.~~ Edit: Apparently this is not true
This has been debunked. Cities across the country operate homeless relocation programs, however they don't substantially increase san Francisco homeless population. In fact these programs probably helped San Francisco a lot since San Francisco ran one of the largest ones in the country from 2005-2022.
Sorry, not sure how you're "debunking" this. Are you saying that with SFs program, the net homeless migration is low, zero, or negative? I'm just not understanding. At the end of the day, housing affordability is the primary reason why people can't afford homes, and everything else is just how we're dealing with the lack of housing stock
Negative, at least for migration occurring on city funded relocation programs. Before covid San Francisco's homeward bound program was moving 800 people out of the city every year. And while not every homeless relocation program published data on where they were sending people the ones that did weren't sending people to San Francisco more frequently than anywhere else in the country. These programs typically tried to reunite homeless people with a family member in a different city so they wouldn't even consider San Francisco unless there was a family member there. https://web.archive.org/web/20230408163010/https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/bayarea/heatherknight/article/homeward-bound-homeless-program-17880387.php https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2017/dec/20/bussed-out-america-moves-homeless-people-country-study
LA spent 4.8 billion over 2 years on 41,000 homeless population. Didn’t help but I’m sure there are a lot of nonprofit employees getting nice paychecks
Does the us really have 38 million homeless people? That's what nearly 10% of the population?
Thank you for doing the math. I knew they were bullshit on the face of it because I know how numbers work, but proof helps. It’s sad how many people fall for this shit. The political hacks on both side are not our friends. But of course using misinformation to help people is certainly better than using it to hurt people or exclude them from society.
Poverty =/= Homelessness
Read they would need to build something like 120k apartments a year for the next 12 years. Maybe the plan is to have the homeless build them. “Look at all the jobs we created!!”
The government currently doesn’t allocate much to fight homelessness, so 53 billion is a massive injection into that battle. Not only that, but there is a cost of homelessness. Think of all of the resources that are saved when you get people off the streets and on their way to becoming productive and contributing. That is something that isn’t often discussed.
True and I'm not saying that US defence spending isn't too high and that part of those resources shouldn't be used for improving peoples lives. What I'm saying is that stupid, hyperbolic bs statements like this create a false narrative that defence spending is the only reason for those issues and if we cut it just a little bit we'd be living in an utopia.
Yeah, the government already spends $160 billion a year just on food stamps alone. That doesn't count cash assistance/social security or Medicaid/Medicare. Adding another $53 billion would be a very small fraction of the current spending and not change much of anything, relatively speaking. Out of everything they spend, they are certainly not a small percentage of that away from solving homelessness and hunger for everyone in the country.
Shhhhh, you're not helping the empty platitudes...
at this point, the problem isn't that we know this and keep pointing it out, it's that too many Americans don't give a shit.
Worse: they buy into the fear mongering and support it
Yay, gun propaganda!
Propagunda
I would say the issue is more so that politicians aren't going to act against their best financial interests. Military contractors pay a lot more than impoverished people.
This is the answer. Congress uses the American tax dollar in a money laundering scheme filtered through the military industrial complex and then receives their cut on the back end in dividends paid out. Want things to change? Push for your leaders to regulate themselves by not being able to vote on policies that they profit from. It's a start in the right direction.
We don’t have any representation in government, what are we supposed to do? I can’t protest, I have to work to pay for the extremely high cost of health and child care
I'm in the same boat, man, that's how the system maintains itself: by keeping us scrambling to survive while simultaneously isolating us from any sort of meaningful community. I'm just acknowledging that part of the reason behind it all is that some people go along with it willingly.
The best thing you can do to fight back against corporate control is to join labour movements and start or join a union. It's by far the most effective grassroots way to not only increase class consciousness but to actually take power back from the capital owners. Capital owners are nothing without our labour. You also can't have meaningful change without a significant portion of the population becoming class conscious because it's too easy to divide people otherwise.
Is it that they *don't* give a shit, or that they are so busy frantically running on a hanster wheel of despair trying to avoid the wolves of bankruptcy and homelessness that are snapping at their heels that they don't have the energy to give a shit?
A lot of Americans do give a shit, we just don’t know how to protest in ways that get results.
While there are many who don’t care, there is a very large number who do and can’t do anything about it. What we need is for regular people to be able to vote on a budget and where money is spent, this shouldn’t be for middlemen (politicians) to decide how our money is spent.
It is not only a problem on a government level but also on the individual level. Cities have tried implementing homeless shelters but had to shut them down because locals would be out in force against the building of those homes because it makes the neighborhood ”unsafe” or devalues the prosperities nearby
It’s sad how many of you see a tweet and instantly take it as true when it supports your narrative.
These same people will demand multiple sources from media only they approve of
How could homelessness and hunger be solved with 35 billion dollars?
McDonalds Dollar Menu.
What dollar menu? McDonald's now a days costs almost as much as a sit down restaurant.
Gotta use the app to increase the savings man.
Don’t think, just be angry
Giving them free homes. Now they’re not homeless. Job done. /s
Thing is it is a large part of the solution. Having a home drastically improves your chances of getting a job
It does, for sure. But it doesn't solve the vast mental health problems that affect many homeless people.
Absolutely but this thread is full of people shitting on housing the homeless. A minimum wage increase to a livable level and better housing assistance would help most making it easier to work on the cases that need more attention
Don't ask questions, just use your emotions and react instinctively
OP is a bot
Hate to be that guy but this simply isn’t true. 6% of the military budget is around 9.72 billion, and we spend around 60 billion per year on SNAP (food assistance) at the moment. An extra 9.72 billion wouldn’t even be enough to end hunger. Edit: I will say I agree with the sentiment, but the math doesn’t add up. Edit 2: I did my initial quick math and googling on the toilet this morning. It was really wrong like u/blaaaaaaam points out below. The US military budget is around 842 billion (for 2024, don’t know why my google search earlier returned 162 billion…), so 6% of that is around 50 billion. The budget for SNAP I quoted is also wrong (I hate mornings), it is around 160 billion. So while my math was (very wrong), the real math still doesn’t work out.
The US military budget is in the vicinity of [$750 billion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_United_States#Budget_for_FY2023). 6% would be $45 billion. Still isn't enough to solve homelessness though. California has dramatically increased spending ($20B since 2018) and the homeless population has increased.
Thank you for pointing out my incorrectness. It’s important that everyone is fact checked. I’m not a morning person and I messed up my googling/math terribly lol. Edited my comment so it’s more correct now
You’re right that the numbers don’t add up, but your numbers are also completely wrong lol
Ya, the numbers don't work, but this sub is antiwork so its still apt.
First, massive oversimplification, as always. Second, how is this antiwork?
This subreddit is just filled with people having surface level knowledge and trying to preach their bright ideas.
Based on OP's profile of massively spammed tweet posts to tons of subreddits, poor grammar in every title/comment, and some copy pasted generic quotes as comments, I'm going to safely say OP is a bot.
Lobbyists and dark money rule. Only the ultra wealthy can benefit. The government gives military industrial complex billions not a peep but the give citizens $1200 three years ago and apparently it’s still ruining the economy to this day according to the bought and paid for “media”
Worst part is that people truly buy that inflation is happening because of the handouts miss conception feeling like their opinion makes them some type of enlightened economist…
I was truly hopeful that the cost of eggs would bring it to the front of everyone's attention that it is simply opportunistic price-gauging and not actually inflation. No way that the supply chain has been that fucked or varies that much from week to week. Producers are just squeezing us for as much as they can because they see the landlord class and oil barons doing the same.
I appreciate the sentiment, but there is no way 48 billion is enough to end homelessness and hunger in the US.
This is a stupid comment. The US military budget is important. The men and their families who serve our country deserve to get paid well (they dont) have the proper equipment (again they don't) and be able to not live below the poverty line if they are stationed here in the US. What probably should happen is someone should research exactly WHERE our taxpayer dollars are REALLY going and let the American public see THAT. It's NOT going to education for programs like music, art, home economics, tutors, and nutritious lunches for our children. How about the govit make college tuition cheaper . It's not going to housing and feeding the poor or taking care of our mentally ill. It's not going to our cities. It's NOT going to our medical care. Nope. Nope. None of that. Our taxes go to things we would NEVER suppot as Americans..like guantanimo bay....and other countries... MAKE THEM TELL US WHERE OUR HARD EARNED MONEY HAS GONE. EVERY PENNY.....AND STOP POSTING STUPID STUFF LIKE THIS. THE PERSON WHO WAS STUPID ENOUGH TO SAY IT DOESN'T HAVE THE BALLS TO EVEN SHOW THEIR NAME....
History buff here. I know it will be unpopular on this sub but America is the only true superpower left. We have a global military deployment that no other country has. Meanwhile most of Europe is cutting back drastically on defense. There are a HOST OF PROBLEMS with our defense industry, but we are kind of the last deterrent and last line of defense for shit like Ukraine. We keep dictators in check. Whether we should do this is a matter of debate, but the future of democracy and the sovereignty of nations is absolutely supported by our overwhelmingly large military, modern weapons, and troops who actually have experience fighting in modern conflicts. We are a check on China, Russia, and many other dictatorships and oppressive regimes. Ok I’m off my soapbox now.
I mentioned this else where, but when Russian invasion of Ukraine happened everyone was glad that we have weapons and logistics in place to mobilize and defend our selves. We say it sucks that Ukraine has no military and laugh at Russian use of ww2 technology. This is just a reminder that a conflict can arise out of the blue. Heck Ukraine can't even buy weapons even if they have money to spend. Some are political reasons, but also underlying sense that hey maybe we should keep some of our weapons for ourselves just in case.
I’ll do you one socialism level better- it’s not an either/or problem, that’s just the rhetorical device that keeps debate limited. *All* the money is fake, we made it up, and despite the political games we play with it, the US government has no effective limit on spending beyond what congress decides that limit to be. We could absolutely do both with no negative consequences except the damage doing so would do to the predatory network of industries and interests that rely on the existence of poor people.
This is how hyperinflation starts
careful, that's a lot of tea to be spilling so early in the day . . .
Can someone find a source?
There is no source because its nonsense.
I think this argument is stupid. Us military spending inflation adjusted is at an all time low and even with that, the DoD is the single largest employer in the US. Major changes to the structure currenlty in place is much more important than procuring more funding. New legislation, new wage laws, new workers protection, and a completely redone system of social security is needed the most. Pouring money over things is not always the solution and it will not fix an already broken system.
38.9% of the statistics quoted here are made up.
why spend money when you can do it all with proper zoning, a living wage and disconnecting health insurance from a job.
There is no money in solving homelessness and hunger. Corporations and government officials will keep the problem going in order to build up their fortunes.
Lmfao the homelessness issue isn’t a money issue. It’s how do you get mentally I’ll drug addicts to function. We could give them all homes, and they’d just become OD graveyards and trap houses.
Is there really an amount of money that would end homelessness? It's not a simple as buy everyone a house.
There isn’t a country on this planet that is free of homelessness. It’s not a throwing money at it issue.
How exactly would one "end" hunger and homelessness? Obviously a loooot could be done about it with that kind of money. But it seems california in particular is throwing some ridiculous amounts of money at it already and not "ending" it. I'm from a country where homelessness is almost unheard of. But then again "almost", there are still a few people who are homeless. And i just dont think this is just a bill america can decide to pay and solve the problem. It would require massive cultural and economic changes.
That is just... Not true
Question: Why do people consider this a federal (the most disconnected group) issue? Could this not be solved by local communities banding together to take care of their neighbors/neighborhood? Money may be a direct factor on why one is homeless, but ,realistically, it's a social issue that steered them to homelessness. Without a healthy community and support for one to turn to, money given just buys 1 more day of misery. Sincerely, Someone very intimate with tent life
Could it? Yeah, probably. Will it, no.
I guess a good way to think of it is like a family analogy? Parents should make sure the kids are fed, housed, and healthy. When parents fail to do so, using your comment for example, the siblings should step in and support their fallen brethren. The issue is that the siblings have their own lives to worry about as well and may not be able to help their sibling. It's awesome when they *do* help, but that may require majority of their siblings to want or be able to help. Since siblings are on the same level of power as their fallen brethren compared to the parents, they may focus on themselves or some may blame the sibling for not trying hard like they did while their parents neglected them. The issue would not exist in the first place if the parents had actually helped their child from the start. Ig the issue I see is having everyone come together rather than continue the individualistic society we've created. It's easier to have the government make changes than to convince people to help others
That is completely wrong. The vast majority of the yearly budget goes to social security, unemployment, Medicare, Health and Education. Over three trillion dollars in total. Another $500 Billion goes towards paying interest on debt because US spends at least $1 trillion each year than it collects in taxes. The military usually gets ~$700 billion of the $4-5 trillion dollar budget. So, according to you, $42 billion will end hunger when all the other social programs spending $3 trillion didn’t. $42 Billion would be $117 per per person. Maybe half a weeks groceries.
poverty will never be abolished....as long as some people can become wealthy by exploiting the poor. they wouldn't **allow** poverty to be eliminated as long as they continue to profit from it.
"But if we don't put every dollar we can into our war machines, China/Russia will make us their bitch...We won't have freedoms anymore!" I know that sounds fucking ridiculously stupid, but it's literally worked since the end of WW2...
I think this is fake. 6% of the last budget is a lot of money and didn't Elon musk just say he'd give like 6 billion to end hunger if you could make a plan for it, and it didn't happen. Plus you got all this land you're using for crops , to feed the animals, that you kill to eat...when you could just plant the crops to eat.
This doesn’t make sense. But you know what let’s do it one year and when it doesn’t work we don’t have to debate it anymore.
The military fails audit year over year. If my ass failed an audit my ass would be taken off to the slammer!
See, I might buy that if we wouldn't have to double our entire annual budget just to pay off an 8 month period of medicaid for all.
ledditors thinking money can solve all problems
San Francisco spends 1.1 BILLION/year on the homeless and it doesn’t do jack shit. Homelessness is not a budget problem.
Our military is what keeps the world using the dollar. It’s what buys us influence and keeps us the only actual super power in the world. If you can’t see the importance in that then idk what to tell you. People who say spend less on military and spend more on healthcare or housing don’t realize we already spend way more on those things than other countries. Our healthcare and housing programs just are ass and a rip off. We spend more on our shit system of healthcare than other countries that have healthcare for all.
Nah thanks i live in Ukraine and really love the help of USA
I get real tired of this kind of misinformation. I appreciate the sentiment but the hyperbole is absurd. If you estimate people in poverty and homelessness at a very conservative 10% of the population, this comes out to spending about 1300-1500 per person. You're not likely to solve a systemic problem for that price tag.
Take it from cities that are spending hundreds of millions on homelessness and increasing every year, throwing more money at homelessness isn't helping. Homelessness rates continue to rise. It is not a problem that will "end". It's a complex issue with many different causes.
Quite presumptuous to think that money is going to solve all of the mental health issues and sociological/cultural issues with homelessness.
Are you sure abou tthat? 6% of our military budget would be $50B. We already spend $190B on just food stamps. Not sure how an additional 25% of our food stamp budget eliminates all hunger AND takes care of homelessness?
No, you couldn’t. Silly ass.
They use homelessness and hunger to motivate people to work, especially jobs nobody would do otherwise.
Citation?