Our National Priorities: Endless Defense Spending or Working Families?

Over and over again, myRepublican colleagues and some of my Democratic colleagues have come down to the Senate floor to complain about the $21 trillion national debt. Over and over again, our Republican friends tell us that we cannot possibly afford to join the rest of the industrialized world and guarantee health care as a right to every man, woman and child through a Medicare for All program. We have been told that we cannot afford to make public colleges and universities tuition free, or to make sure that everyone in America has access to affordable housing, childcare, or a good job that pays a living wage with good benefits. Even though over half of older Americans have no retirement savings we have been told we need to cut Social Security. But, when it comes to spending $716 billion on the military?-?more than the next ten countries combined?-?all of a sudden there is a deafening silence from my Republican colleagues about the deficit.