How the ‘News’ Media Distort About the Cuts to Medicaid
A typical example is the Politico article, on July 3rd, “Three reasons why Republicans cut Medicaid”, which at its opening asks and answers the question: “why did the GOP slash deeply into the health insurance program in its megabill? Three reasons: [1] Republicans desperately needed money to avoid a big tax increase next year, [2] they wanted to claw back Biden-era policies GOP lawmakers say led to lax eligibility checks and more fraudulent benefit claims and [3] they wanted to curb the Medicaid expansion enacted by then-President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats in the Affordable Care Act.”
Here’s the far-more-basic and decisive truth, which all of the ‘news’-media — both of Democratic Party billionaires, and of Republican Party billionaires — hide:
Almost all of the “waste, fraud and abuse” in the U.S. federal Government is in the U.S. military, which consumes over half of all of the funds that the Presdent and Congress each year authorize to and do spend — and even only the Defense Department’s portion of that, which constitutes around two-thirds of America’s annual military spending, wastes (by means of fraud and abuse but especially corruption, which enormusly inflates the costs of America’s weaponry), the vast majority of the waste in the U.S. Government’s annually allocated funds. Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency DOGE virtually ignored it, though the U.S. Defense Department is the ONLY federal Department that is SO corrupt that it has NEVER BEEN AUDITED. Instead of Musk (and Trump) focusing on that, they just ignored it and concentrated instead upon ‘waste, fraud and abuse’ in the spending that DOES serve the public (instead of serve merely the investors in firms such as Lockheed Martin, which sell only to the U.S. Government and its allied Governments (such as in NATO and in the Gulf Arab kingdoms and Israel). Those firms know that in order to control their markets they need to control their own Government, the U.S. Government — which they DO control, which is why over half of U.S. federal discretionary spending now is for the military. Only this way can their sales-volumes and the prices of their goods and services continue soaring far higher than for the firms in the rest of the stock market — as they have been doing ever since the Soviet Union ended in 1991 and ‘terrorism’ and other propaganda points became the new focus so as to produce the constant and forever-war American economy that we have had ever since 1991 — the military-industrial complex (MIC) unleashed and running wild and eating up the America that serves the other people, the ones who DON’t own and control those firms (the firms that PROFIT from wars).
Unlike in countries such as Russia and China, which refused to privatise their armaments-manufacturers (the Government owns them by more than 50%), our armaments firms are PRIVATELY owned and controlled — for profit, NOT for the public; for the billionaires, and not to protect the nation against actual enemies.
For a typical example of how this works, a study published in 2022 by Bernstein Research found (as reported on its page 75) that, for one typical ‘defense’ corporation, Northrop Grumman, its “stock has outperformed the S&P 500 by 451% over the last 10 years.” Furthermore, “Defense stocks … also tend to outperform through recessions and are uncorrelated with inflation.” That’s the type of extraordinary profitability that a corporation which controls its own market normally achieves; and, in the U.S., ‘defense’ stocks started taking off like a rocket in 1991 and have been continuing that astounding growth ever since. The less necessary that a capitalist nation’s military is for protecting the nation, like in the U.S. since 1991 when the Soviet Union ended, the more profitable its military manufacturers are, because the corruption then becomes virtually unlimited (see this and this for the evidence). Right now, the U.S. Government spends 65% — almost two-thirds — of the entire world’s military expenditures — almost twice what all of the world’s 200 other nations together spend. Now, THAT’S corruption, on a massive scale! It’s shown right there, in those numbers.
Right now, the Trump Administration (just like Biden’s had done) has been and is pressuring their colonies (‘allies’) to increase their military expenditures, in order to keep this soaring wealth for their billionaires going. On June 25th, Reuters headlined “NATO commits to spending hike sought by Trump” and reported: “NATO leaders on Wednesday backed the big increase in defence spending that U.S. President Donald Trump had demanded, and restated their commitment to defend each other from attack after a brief summit in the Netherlands.” Continuation of the current U.S.-backed wars and perhaps starting some new ones, will be needed in order to make this happen; and, so, as the U.S. Government has been doing ever since 1945 and especially after 1991 (when the Soviet Union ended), what’s needed is creating international chaos, civil wars, and failed states. But this also means that existing wars must
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LewRockwell.com is a libertarian website that publishes articles, essays, and blog posts advocating for minimal government, free markets, and individual liberty. The site was founded by Lew Rockwell, an American libertarian political commentator, activist, and former congressional staffer. The website often features content that is critical of mainstream politics, state intervention, and foreign policy, among other topics. It is a platform frequently used to disseminate Austrian economics, a school of economic thought that is popular among some libertarians.
