Big surprise…

5 Comments

• 
  Imara October 19, 2010 at 5:24 pm

  While obviously I agree that the war in Afghanistan should be more of an issue for voters, I can’t say that I’m surprised it isn’t. At least in part I’d argue that voters are most concerned about the issues they’re told they should be concerned about. Currently those issues are jobs the nebulous woes of the economy. Government spending in general seems a hard issue to take on, regardless of what impact it has on the economy overall. On one hand its regularly argued that spending needs to be cut across the board, on the other it’s never acceptable or “American” to question military spending. Another contributor might be the genuinely mindboggling amounts of money we’re discussing. Regularly in opinion polls people are upset about foreign aid spending or education spending or health care spending et cetera, perhaps the hundreds of billions being spent on military activities is just too much to easily comprehend.
• 
  Barak October 20, 2010 at 11:27 pm

  I disagree with your analysis, Elizabeth. The war is bad for lots of reasons (as I have written about over and over and over again on this blog), but war spending is good for the US economy at the moment. It creates jobs for government employees and contractors, and pays defense firms lots of money to build stuff. Spending on the war is just government spending and that’s a good thing to do when private sector demand is weak. Now, we could certainly spend the money better. Also, Afghanistan might be a foreign policy mistake. But I disagree that spending on the war is harming the economy is wrong; I think it’s helping.
• 
  elizabeth October 20, 2010 at 11:43 pm

  So, by that accord, we should actually stay in Afghanistan indefinitely because then at least some Americans get jobs out of it?
  I realize that’s an oversimplification, but my concern here is that “economy” and “foreign policy” (or more specifically, the Afghan war) have been separated as issues for voters. And even though I completely agree that job creation is crucial right now, I think that a healthy economy (ie one with out a gigantic deficit) is just as much a part of our national security as guns and tankers are. Spending on the war is thus a bit of a double-edged sword–yes, it creates jobs for (some) Americans, but it also pushes us further into debt. This is why it’s troubling that the “average voter” that the NYT reported on apparently doesn’t see this link.
• 
  Barak October 21, 2010 at 1:46 pm

  I think its a good thing they don’t see the link. No one votes on budget deficits, but people do vote on GDP growth and unemployment. Given the current state of the economy, large budget deficits and running up debt are good things. Less government spending now would lead to lower GDP growth and higher unemployment – and more debt in real (inflation-adjusted) terms (see Japan post-1990). It might be better to spend the money in the US than in Afghanistan, but that’s not an option and it’s better than not spending the money at all.
• Democracy and Society » Picking a fight October 21, 2010 at 3:01 pm

  [...] Elizabeth is concerned that voters don’t link defense spending (or more specifically the cost of the war in Afghanistan) with the large budget deficits the US government is currently running. Elizabeth believes that if voters understood the link better, there would be more pressure to cut defense spending as a way to reduce the budget deficit. [...]