This point has been made before, but not usually as bluntly as here (emphasis in original):
Ryan Avent asks what would happen if for just one year we spent as much on infrastructure investments as we do on the Department of Defense:
With that kind of money you could entirely build out a national network of true high-speed rail. One year’s worth of defense spending gets you that. Which makes one wonder: where are all the economists, wringing their hands over cost-benefit analyses of these defense expenditures?Does anyone doubt that the net benefit of $100 billion spent on high-speed rail is easily higher than that for the last $100 billion spent on defense? Have a look at this if you’re unsure.
[snip]
Matthew adds:
Something worth noting is that for a hegemonic power suffering from slow-but-steady (but very slow) relative decline, wasting money on national security expenditures actually erodes our hegemony. Meaningful U.S.-Chinese security competition is a generation or two away. By that time, money that was spent in 2009 on fighter planes or nuclear submarines or transportation infrastructure in Afghanistan isn’t going to be doing us any good. By contrast, spending money on preschool in 2009 does improve the U.S.-Chinese balance of power in 2049—investment in early childhood education pays enormous dividends, but it takes a long time to turn tiny babies into productive adults. And transportation is just the same. The construction of heavy rail mass transit in Boston, New York, Chicago, and Washington was extremely expensive but has paid consistent dividends for decades and if properly maintained will continue to do so forever.
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