The debt crisis. Instead of a work requirement, how about a peace requirement.

Wishing my big brother Mike Klonsky a happy birthday. This is number 80 and he’s still going strong. You can catch his radio show and podcast, live on Lumpenradio.com every Friday at 11am Chicago time and at hittingleft.libsyn.com on any podcast site.

Yesterday was Bob Dylan’s 82nd birthday.

Thinking about the endless war and killing in Ukraine I’m reminded of Dylan’s classic anti-war anthem, Masters of War.

You fasten all the triggers
For the others to fire
Then you sit back and watch
When the death count gets higher
You hide in your mansion
While the young people's blood
Flows out of their bodies
And is buried in mud.

There is not much talk of peace or negotiations coming from out political leaders.

Of course, Trump says if elected he will end the war in 24 hours. But that is plainly absurd.

As are the bizarre ramblings of the crazy isolationist Marjory Taylor Greene.

The MAGA Right may support Putin, but that is not a framework for a real peace.

A genuine framework for negotiations to end the war in Ukraine is exactly what most of the world wants.

Since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Pope Francis has pleaded for peace practically on a weekly basis, and has repeatedly expressed a wish to act as a broker between Kyiv and Moscow.

Countries that are not part of the NATO military alliance have repeatedly called for negotiations, including China, Brazil and India which represent about a third of the world’s population.

In Washington attention after agreeing to send 60 M-16 fighter jets to the war zone, is now focused on the debt crisis.

The MAGA majority in the House wants cuts to social spending and wants to include a work requirement for those receiving government assistance.

But it is not government help to our poor that created the nation’s debt.

There would be no debt if the United States had not been involved in decades of war and massive war spending.

We have spent over $100 billion just in the last year on the war in Ukraine.

Appearing on Democracy Now! Jeffrey Sachs spoke to the real connection between the current debt crisis and peace. Sachs is the director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University and president of the U.N. Sustainable Development Solutions Network. He has served as adviser to three U.N. secretaries-general, and currently serves as a sustainable development solutions advocate under Secretary-General António Guterres.

He recently wrote an article headlined “America’s Wars and the US Debt Crisis.”

You know, it is startling that since the year 2000, the debt that the U.S. government owes to the public has gone from about 35% of our national income to nearly 100% of our national income, or GDP. That has been dramatic because we have been engaged in nonstop wars literally since the start of this new century — Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen and now Ukraine. And we have spent a fortune. But no president has said to us, “These wars are so important that we should pay taxes.” They’ve just put it on the borrowing. And as that Watson Institute study has shown, that you cited, the one at Brown University, these wars have cost us around $8 trillion. That’s direct military outlays. That’s ancillary costs. That’s the veterans’ medical expenses. This has been a very significant proportion of the rise of this debt. Another significant proportion was the financial sector, the Wall Street bailout in 2008 and the pandemic costs. But the wars have been a huge deal.

And it’s bipartisan. This isn’t Republicans or Democrats. Neither party wants to talk about the elephant in the room, which is that we are currently at an incredibly destructive, disastrous and, I would say, avoidable war. The toll is rising, of course, in destruction and human lives, but also in outlays. You mentioned the $113 billion. And there’s more to come, if this administration gets its way. They’re not talking about this in these negotiations. They’re talking about cutting help for the poorest people in this country and to continue the warmongering and feeding the military-industrial complex.

Instead of a work requirement, we need to demand a peace requirement.