If only alternatives were any better, we would send Obama packing!

Of course, my rantings here don't influence a damn thing (editor: have you forgotten the hate email, which is proof that there are people who read what you write?)

Therefore, it is all the more a consolation when I find that the likes of Krugman and Stiglitz and Sachs and ... write about these in ways that are far, far, far more influential. Here is Sachs (ht):

[At] every crucial opportunity, Obama has failed to stand up for the poor and middle class. ... Obama is on the verge of abandoning the poor and middle class, by agreeing with the plutocrats in Congress to cut spending on Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, and discretionary civilian spending, while protecting the military and the low tax rates on the rich (if not lowering those top tax rates further according to the secret machinations of the Gang of Six, now endorsed by the president!)

 If everything--including social security--is on the table, why then is military off the table?  On a special velvet-cushion chair all by itself?  Sipping a martini while expenditures over at the civil society are being shredded?

As Congressman Barney Frank said:

Scoffing at the suggestion that “everything is on the table’’ in budget negotiations between the Obama administration and congressional leaders, Frank said, “The military budget is not on the table. The military is at the table, and it is eating everybody else’s lunch.’’

A double-martini lunch, indeed!

How much do we spend on the military?