What's missing from the debt-ceiling discussion, albeit nothing new to DB readers, is spending on wars and the pentagon. It's not even being mentioned as a possibility in any of the competing debt plans, despite the following undeniably depressing and disgusting facts:
From Reddit:
I thought this kind of puts things in perspective. In 2010, the US government collected $898 billion in federal income tax revenues. The same year, we spent $847 billion on useless wars and national defense. That means that 94% of all federal income tax revenue is equivalent to what we spend on the Pentagon. Who out there thinks it was money well spent?
Also, just to piss you off a little bit more - defense spending is equivalent to 443% of what we collect in total corporate taxes.
Hidden cost of war in Afghanistan: