US base spending dwarfs the cost of universal health care

Evidence

Russell Madden’s story is a reminder of the life-and-death significance of the choices connected to our base nation. Unlike virtually all of the wealthy industrialized countries in which the United States maintains bases—Germany, Japan, South Korea, Britain, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Norway, and Belgium among them—the United States does not guarantee health care for all its citizens. The idea of doing so is often dismissed as too expensive. Meanwhile, the nation spends immense sums every year supporting a global base infrastructure largely born of a world war and a cold war that ended decades ago. — David Vine, Base Nation_ How U.S. Military Bases…, 1027

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the broader public-infrastructure trade-off argument, and to how countries hosting US bases still fund their own public services (social capital/government-spending literature).