𩸠THE BIGGEST FISH IS EATING ITS OWN TAIL
Who Pays When Power Becomes Too Expensive?
RED BLOOD JOURNAL | Investigative and Philosophical Report | November 9, 2026
Central Question: When a powerful nation builds institutions that depend on enormous and continuing expenditures, how can its citizens distinguish necessary protection from an economic system that increasingly consumes the resources sustaining it?
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY â THE PARADOX OF POWER
Throughout history, powerful nations have pursued security, resources, markets, and influence beyond their borders. Sometimes those efforts have protected populations and international trade. Other times, they have produced destructive wars, financial obligations, and institutions that continue demanding resources long after their original missions have ended.
The United States today operates the worldâs largest military economy. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, American military expenditure reached approximately $954 billion in 2025. Meanwhile, Brown Universityâs Costs of War Project estimates that post-September 11 conflicts have generated approximately $8 trillion in expenditures and financial obligations, including future veteransâ care.
These figures do not prove that American wars are manufactured for profit. They do, however, raise an important question about institutional incentives: What happens when organizations develop a financial dependence on spending that the public must continually finance?
This report examines that question through a simple metaphor: a fish that grows so large, and becomes so accustomed to consuming smaller fish, that it eventually risks devouring its own tail.
The central warning is not that America has run out of countries to conquer. It is that national power can become increasingly expensive to maintain, and that the economic consequences of maintaining it may ultimately fall upon the people it was supposed to protect.
I. THE BIGGEST FISH IN THE OCEAN
Imagine an enormous ocean containing fish of every size. The larger fish consume the smaller ones, grow stronger, and develop appetites proportional to their increasing size. Eventually, one fish becomes so enormous that the surrounding ocean can no longer provide enough food to satisfy its demands.
The fish faces a choice. It can adapt to the limitations of its environment, or it can continue consuming until the system sustaining it begins to collapse.
But imagine something even more disturbing: the largest fish becomes so desperate to maintain its size that it begins eating its own tail without recognizing what it is doing.
This is the central metaphor of our investigation.
The ocean represents the interconnected global economy. The fish represent competing institutions, nations, corporations, and concentrations of economic power. The largest fish represents not every American citizen or even the American government alone, but the powerful network of institutions that depend upon the countryâs financial, military, and political resources.
The smaller fish are not necessarily innocent, nor are the larger fish always predatory. Governments must protect their populations, businesses must remain economically viable, and international security sometimes requires substantial expenditures.
But when institutions become accustomed to expansion, their incentives may diverge from the long-term well-being of the populations sustaining them.
What begins as protection can evolve into dependency. What begins as an instrument of national security can become an economic establishment with powerful reasons to preserve its own size.
The danger arrives when institutional survival becomes confused with national survival.
II. THE DARKEST PRAYER â MORE WARS TO DELAY OUR OWN CONSUMPTION?
Consider a deliberately disturbing proposition:
Perhaps Americans should pray for more wars overseas, because every new conflict might temporarily satisfy the financial appetite of powerful institutions and postpone the moment when those institutions turn entirely toward extracting resources from Americans themselves.
This is not an endorsement of war. It is an examination of the absurd moral logic that can emerge when economic interests become dependent on conflict.
If certain industries benefit from military procurement, weapons replacement, infrastructure rebuilding, and extended defense commitments, then conflict can generate revenue for those industries even when it imposes enormous costs on society.
But the original proposition contains a contradiction.
Who pays for those contracts? Who finances the borrowing? Who bears the long-term costs of caring for wounded veterans, replacing depleted equipment, and servicing debts incurred during military operations?
Much of the burden falls upon the American public, directly or indirectly.
The fish may already be eating its own tail.
Foreign conflicts do not necessarily postpone domestic economic burdens. They can contribute to them through borrowing, interest, future obligations, and the displacement of other public priorities.
The disturbing possibility is that some Americans may perceive international military expansion as evidence of national strength while experiencing some of its financial consequences at home.
The more useful question, therefore, is not whether Americans should hope for another war. It is whether they can determine which military commitments genuinely protect them and which expenditures may serve institutional interests more than public security.
III. EISENHOWERâS WARNING â A PROBLEM RECOGNIZED IN 1961
On January 17, 1961, President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned the American people about the growing influence of what he called the military-industrial complex.
His concerns deserve special attention because he had served as Supreme Allied Commander in Europe during World War II and understood both the necessity of military preparedness and the dangers of excessive institutional influence.
Eisenhower recognized that modern defense required a permanent military-industrial establishment. The United States could no longer depend entirely on assembling its military capabilities after a major threat had already emerged.
Yet he also warned that the combination of military institutions, industrial production, and political influence could undermine democratic accountability.
His argument was not that defense contractors should disappear or that military spending was inherently illegitimate. His concern was whether the organizations created to defend the nation might acquire disproportionate influence over the decisions determining their own budgets and missions.
This distinction is essential.
A country can require a strong military while simultaneously needing powerful mechanisms to prevent military-related economic interests from shaping policy beyond legitimate defense requirements.
Eisenhowerâs warning asks a question that remains relevant today: Can the public maintain effective oversight of institutions whose operations are highly technical, politically influential, and increasingly expensive?
The consequences concern not simply financial efficiency but the relationship between national security and democratic responsibility.
IV. FOLLOW THE MONEY â HOW LARGE HAS THE FISH BECOME?
SIPRI reported that the United States spent approximately $954 billion on its military in 2025, measured in current U.S. dollars. This represented approximately 33 percent of global military expenditure and remained the worldâs largest national military expenditure.
China, the second-largest military spender, was estimated to have spent approximately $336 billion, while Russia spent approximately $190 billion.
An important qualification is that U.S. military spending actually declined by 7.5 percent in real terms from 2024 to 2025, primarily because of reduced overseas military assistance. It was nevertheless approximately 11 percent higher in real terms than in 2016.
The United States devoted approximately 3.1 percent of GDP to military spending in 2025, compared with 3.4 percent in 2016.
These figures complicate any simplistic claim that Americaâs military burden is continuously increasing as a share of its economy. Spending can rise over longer periods while declining in a particular year or falling relative to GDP.
Nevertheless, the absolute financial scale remains extraordinary.
According to the Congressional Research Service, the Department of Defense obligated approximately $445 billion in contracts during fiscal year 2024. Five major companiesâLockheed Martin, RTX, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, and General Dynamicsâreceived approximately 30 percent of those contract obligations.
These figures represent contract commitments, not corporate profits. Companies incur research, manufacturing, labor, supply-chain, and other expenses, and many contractors serve legitimate national-security requirements.
Yet the concentration of procurement spending presents important oversight questions.
When a relatively small number of corporations supply major military capabilities, how competitive are procurement processes? How effectively are costs independently evaluated? What influence do contractors have over the development of requirements, and how easily can governments reject or replace expensive programs?
Industrial concentration does not automatically imply corruption. Certain military technologies require specialized expertise and production facilities that only a limited number of companies possess.
But concentration increases the importance of transparent oversight because replacing a supplier or abandoning a program can become extremely difficult once enormous public investments have been committed.
The fishâs size is documented. Whether its appetite is justified requires a separate investigation.
V. THE BILLS THAT OUTLIVE THE WARS
One of the most significant characteristics of military conflict is that its financial consequences can continue for decades after combat operations end.
Brown Universityâs Costs of War Project estimates that American post-September 11 wars generated approximately $8 trillion in expenditures and obligations. Its accounting incorporates military operations, related security spending, interest already incurred, and obligations for future veteransâ care.
The figure is not simply money already paid. It includes substantial commitments extending into future decades, and it excludes some future interest costs.
The distinction matters because a nation can end a military operation without ending its financial responsibilities.
Veterans may require lifelong medical care, rehabilitation, disability compensation, and family support. Equipment must be maintained or replaced, government debt must be serviced, and communities affected by conflict may need years of recovery.
These obligations are not evidence that caring for veterans is wasteful. They demonstrate why the full costs of military decisions must be evaluated before those decisions are made.
A war authorized today can create obligations for taxpayers who were not yet born when it began.
Meanwhile, the Congressional Budget Office reported on November 9, 2026, that the U.S. federal budget deficit for fiscal year 2026 reached approximately $2 trillion, an increase of about $217 billion over the preceding year.
That deficit cannot be attributed exclusively to military expenditure. Federal borrowing is influenced by taxation, retirement benefits, healthcare, interest, economic conditions, and numerous other government responsibilities.
But military commitments are part of the broader fiscal picture.
If borrowing is used to finance present spending, the resulting debt can create future interest obligations. That can reduce fiscal flexibility, although the economic consequences depend upon interest rates, economic growth, taxation, and subsequent policy decisions.
The public should therefore examine both the initial costs of military actions and the financial commitments those actions leave behind.
The war may end on the battlefield while its economic consequences continue inside the national budget.
VI. WHEN THE BIGGEST FISH ACTUALLY PROTECTS THE OCEAN
Any serious examination of military expenditures must recognize why nations maintain powerful defense establishments.
Military deterrence can prevent aggression. A credible ability to defend territory, protect allies, and respond to attacks may reduce the likelihood of conflicts whose human and economic consequences would be substantially greater.
Maintaining readiness requires trained personnel, specialized equipment, logistical networks, research capabilities, and industrial production that cannot always be recreated quickly after an emergency begins.
American defense expenditures also support maritime security, military alliances, advanced technology, and commitments extending beyond U.S. territory.
Chinaâs increasing military capabilities, Russiaâs war against Ukraine, nuclear proliferation, cyber threats, and instability in strategically important regions present different security challenges. Governments must make judgments under uncertainty, often before the full dimensions of a threat become visible.
Defense research has also contributed to technologies with civilian applications, and military production supports skilled employment and important industrial capacity.
Underinvestment in national security can therefore create substantial risks.
The existence of these legitimate benefits means that reducing military expenditures cannot be evaluated solely by the amount of money saved. A spending reduction that materially increases the risk of catastrophic conflict could prove far more expensive than the original expenditure.
But the reverse also deserves consideration.
An expenditure does not become efficient merely because officials label it essential to national security. Military programs can suffer from unrealistic schedules, inflated costs, technological difficulties, and changing requirements.
The meaningful distinction is between the security a nation needs and the spending that individual institutions prefer.
Both possibilities must remain open to examination.
A healthy ocean does not require defenseless fish. It requires protection that does not unnecessarily destroy the environment on which everyone depends.
VII. WHEN PROTECTION BECOMES TOO EXPENSIVE â THE EVIDENCE OF PROCUREMENT FAILURE
In July 2026, the U.S. Government Accountability Office published its annual assessment of major military weapons programs.
The findings provide a concrete reason for examining the performance of military procurement rather than relying solely on arguments about industry influence.
GAO reported that the Department of Defense continued struggling to deliver technologies quickly and within budget. Across major defense acquisition programs, the average period required to deliver a capability had increased to more than 12 years.
The assessment also identified delayed milestones, unrealistic schedules, and inconsistent application of established product-development practices.
These findings do not demonstrate that contractors deliberately extended projects to increase revenue. Advanced weapons development involves real technological uncertainty, changing military requirements, and complex engineering challenges.
But documented procurement problems have consequences.
If an expensive system is delivered late, military personnel may be forced to rely longer on older equipment. Governments may incur additional costs, and the public may wait years longer than anticipated for the promised security benefits.
A prolonged procurement process can therefore create a double burden: resources are consumed without delivering the expected capability on schedule, while the need for that capability remains.
This exposes a central weakness in evaluating military expenditures solely by their size.
The public should ask not merely how much money was allocated but what measurable protection was delivered, when it was delivered, and how its final cost compared with the original commitment.
If a system repeatedly demands more resources without delivering proportionate results, continued funding requires a stronger justification than the amount already spent.
The biggest fish should not be permitted to treat its previous appetite as proof that it deserves an even larger meal.
VIII. THE OPPORTUNITY COST â WHAT ELSE COULD THE MONEY HAVE DONE?
Every public expenditure involves choices.
A dollar committed to military procurement cannot simultaneously finance public education, infrastructure, medical research, or debt reduction without additional revenue or borrowing.
This does not mean that education and national defense are interchangeable. They serve different public purposes, and the benefits of deterrence cannot be measured solely in jobs created or dollars returned.
Nevertheless, opportunity costs deserve explicit examination.
Research associated with Brown Universityâs Costs of War Project has estimated that military spending generates fewer jobs per million dollars than equivalent expenditures in some civilian sectors, including education.
The explanation is partly structural. Advanced military production can be capital-intensive, technologically specialized, and dependent on expensive materials, whereas many educational services require relatively more labor.
Such employment estimates depend upon economic modeling assumptions and should not be interpreted as guarantees for individual projects.
The argument is not that governments should abandon defense spending in favor of whichever program creates the greatest number of jobs.
Rather, when additional military spending is proposed, policymakers should explain the specific security benefit expected and why the proposed amount is necessary.
If the benefit cannot be demonstrated, competing public priorities deserve consideration.
A societyâs security also depends upon economic productivity, infrastructure, public health, technological capacity, education, and social stability.
Military strength protects these foundations, but it cannot fully substitute for them.
A nation that strengthens its weapons while allowing essential economic and social capabilities to deteriorate may eventually weaken the foundations supporting its military power.
That is where the metaphor begins moving from the ocean toward the tail.
IX. WHEN INCENTIVES BECOME DEPENDENCY
The most difficult question in this investigation is whether legitimate military requirements can develop into institutional dependence on continued expenditure.
Consider several ordinary financial and political incentives.
A defense corporation must maintain revenue, employ workers, invest in production capacity, and satisfy investors. A community dependent on military installations or defense manufacturing has an interest in preserving employment. Military organizations seek the resources necessary to fulfill their missions, and elected officials face pressure to protect jobs and respond to security concerns.
None of these interests is automatically illegitimate.
But their interaction can create powerful resistance to changing priorities, eliminating inefficient programs, or reducing spending when a particular threat diminishes.
This does not require a secret agreement among political leaders, military officials, and corporations.
Institutional dependence can emerge when organizations become accustomed to existing financial arrangements and gradually interpret their preservation as essential to the broader public interest.
The relationship between motive and outcome must nevertheless be examined carefully.
A profitable military contract does not prove that the contractor caused a conflict. An increase in military spending does not establish that a threat was manufactured. Lobbying activity alone does not prove an improper procurement decision.
Establishing those claims would require specific evidence connecting decisions, financial interests, political influence, and measurable outcomes.
The strongest version of the biggest-fish hypothesis is therefore not that every war is secretly arranged.
It is that large institutions can develop incentives to preserve spending and influence even when their continued expansion no longer produces proportionate public benefits.
Whether those incentives have influenced a particular war or procurement decision is a factual question that must be investigated separately.
X. THE TAIL IS ALREADY BEING EATEN â BUT HOW MUCH?
The original analogy suggested that powerful institutions might eventually consume domestic resources after exhausting external opportunities.
The financial evidence reveals a more complicated possibility.
American taxpayers and future generations already bear some of the costs of military operations through public financing, debt obligations, and competing budgetary priorities.
At the same time, Americans receive genuine benefits from military security, employment, technology, and deterrence. The net result cannot be determined simply by subtracting military expenditure from the federal budget.
The distinction matters because the United States is not one uniform economic actor.
A defense contractor receiving a federal award, a taxpayer financing government operations, a soldier exposed to combat risks, and a family dependent upon public services experience the same national decisions very differently.
Even within the defense economy, contract revenue is distributed among workers, suppliers, shareholders, subcontractors, and government obligations rather than flowing entirely into corporate profit.
To determine whether the public is being harmed by particular spending decisions, the investigation must therefore identify who benefits, who bears the risks, what alternatives existed, and what outcomes were actually achieved.
The broader fiscal pressures facing Americans cannot all be blamed on military expenditure. Housing costs, healthcare, tax policy, productivity, labor markets, entitlement programs, interest rates, and other factors play major roles.
But the inability to attribute every economic problem to military spending does not eliminate the obligation to examine that spending.
The largest fish becomes dangerous not merely because it consumes resources, but because its consumption may no longer be adequately restrained by evidence of necessity or effectiveness.
The warning is about the conditions under which institutional self-preservation can begin to undermine the larger society.
And in that sense, the tail may already be supporting the appetite.
XI. HOW TO TEST THE HYPOTHESIS â AND DEMAND ACCOUNTABILITY
The biggest-fish hypothesis should not be accepted simply because its metaphor is compelling. It must be tested against verifiable evidence.
Evidence supporting the concern would include repeated procurement overruns without effective corrective action, documented conflicts of interest influencing spending decisions, unnecessary programs preserved primarily because of institutional or political pressure, and military commitments extended without demonstrable security benefits.
Evidence challenging the hypothesis would include strong independent findings that expenditures produced benefits proportionate to their costs, transparent procurement decisions that rejected inefficient programs, and examples of successful reductions in spending when operational needs declined.
Several practical accountability measures would help establish which interpretation better describes reality.
First, independent cost and schedule evaluations should become more consequential. Major weapons programs should be assessed against their original budgets, delivery targets, operating requirements, and independently verified performance. Persistent failure should trigger explicit review of whether continuation remains justified.
Second, public reporting should clarify the relationship between financial influence and procurement decisions. Lobbying expenditures, relevant political contributions, conflicts of interest, revolving-door employment, and contract awards should be presented in ways that allow independent examination. Disclosure alone cannot prove improper influence, but it can help investigators identify relationships requiring closer scrutiny.
Third, military operations should receive comprehensive long-term cost assessments. Before major commitments are expanded, officials should present realistic estimates of operational expenditures, likely duration, veteransâ obligations, reconstruction requirements, financing costs, and conditions for concluding the mission.
Fourth, national-security decisions should be evaluated against stated outcomes. Spending should be measured not only by equipment purchased or money obligated, but by the military capabilities and public-security benefits actually achieved.
Finally, existing oversight findings should have visible consequences. The Government Accountability Office, inspectors general, congressional committees, and independent analysts already possess important investigative responsibilities. The public should be able to determine what recommendations were adopted, which were rejected, and why unresolved problems continue.
These measures would not eliminate the need for classified information or uncertain national-security judgments. They would help ensure that secrecy and complexity do not become permanent barriers to meaningful financial accountability.
The central principle is straightforward.
The right to govern must be earned through continuing accountability, not treated as an unlimited authorization to spend public resources without demonstrating results.
XII. 𩸠RED BLOOD PERSPECTIVE â FOLLOW THE APPETITE, NOT THE SPEECH
The evidence establishes that the United States maintains an enormous military economy, that significant procurement obligations are concentrated among major contractors, that weapons development can experience serious delays, and that wars generate financial obligations extending far beyond the battlefield.
These findings do not prove that Americaâs foreign conflicts are deliberately manufactured for private profit.
They do establish legitimate reasons to investigate whether institutional incentives, financial dependence, and political influence sometimes contribute to expenditures whose public benefits are not sufficiently demonstrated.
The critical issue is not simply the amount of money spent. It is the relationship between spending, necessity, effectiveness, and accountability.
When an institution demands more resources in the name of protecting the population, the population has a legitimate interest in knowing whether the resources deliver the promised protection.
The biggest-fish metaphor illustrates a danger that can emerge within any powerful institution: the tendency to prioritize continued growth or preservation over the health of the system supporting it.
A military establishment capable of protecting a country is an important national asset. An establishment unable to justify its expenditures or adapt to changing needs can become a source of economic strain.
The distinction must be made through evidence rather than assumption.
Perhaps the darkest irony is that the biggest fish may never recognize when its own survival strategy begins damaging the ocean that sustains it.
The final question is therefore not whether America should hope for more wars to postpone its own economic consumption.
It is whether Americans can demand sufficient accountability to prevent national protection from becoming an open-ended claim on the nationâs future.
A fish that consumes its own tail may remain enormous for a while, but size alone is not proof of health.
XIII. đâ¤ď¸â¨ OCEAN OF LOVE AND POSITIVITY â THE OCEAN WAS NEVER MEANT TO BE EMPTY
In nature, the survival of one living being often depends upon another. But human beings possess the ability to recognize that competition and cooperation are not mutually exclusive, and that lasting prosperity requires more than the accumulation of power.
The ocean cannot remain healthy if every living creature is treated merely as a resource for something larger.
Likewise, a society cannot build lasting strength by measuring its success only through military dominance, financial expansion, or the ability to impose its will.
Security matters. Protecting innocent people from violence matters. Maintaining the capacity to resist aggression matters.
But these purposes should ultimately serve human life rather than displace it.
A country that claims to defend freedom must preserve meaningful accountability to the people in whose name its institutions operate. A society that claims to value human dignity must consider the costs imposed upon civilians, soldiers, families, and generations not yet born.
The challenge is not to eliminate ambition, national defense, or economic growth. It is to ensure that those pursuits remain connected to their human purpose.
Before demanding additional sacrifice, institutions should demonstrate what the sacrifice is expected to accomplish. Before expanding conflict, leaders should examine alternatives. Before celebrating the growth of national power, citizens should ask whether that growth improves their ability to live securely, freely, and with dignity.
We do not have to accept that prosperity requires endless consumption or that peace represents an economic failure.
Human beings can build institutions that reward useful innovation, responsible protection, productive cooperation, and the preservation of future opportunity.
Perhaps the greatest strength of a nation is not its ability to consume more than others, but its ability to recognize when enough power has been accumulated to protect life without placing that life in greater danger.
The biggest fish does not need to devour the ocean to survive.
It needs a healthy ocean in which survival remains possible for everyone.
And perhaps the greatest victory humanity could achieve would be to create a world in which no nation needs another war simply to sustain the institutions built in the name of peace.
SOURCES AND VERIFICATION
1. National Archives â Dwight D. Eisenhowerâs Farewell Address, January 17, 1961. Primary historical documentation of Eisenhowerâs warning about the military-industrial complex.
https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/president-dwight-d-eisenhowers-farewell-address
2. Stockholm International Peace Research Institute â Trends in World Military Expenditure, 2025, April 2026. U.S. and global military spending, real growth rates, international comparisons, and military spending relative to GDP.
https://www.sipri.org/publications/2026/sipri-fact-sheets/trends-world-military-expenditure-2025
3. Congressional Research Service â Defense Primer: Department of Defense Contractors, February 6, 2026. FY2024 contract obligations and contractor concentration.
https://www.everycrsreport.com/files/2026-02-06_IF10600_9f9cfb2b5813c9ae677140e6f6fc05a535a77593.pdf
4. Brown University â Costs of War Project, Federal Budget and War Costs. Estimates of financial obligations and the long-term costs of post-9/11 conflicts.
https://costsofwar.watson.brown.edu/costs/economic/us-federal-budget
5. Congressional Budget Office â Monthly Budget Review: Summary for Fiscal Year 2026, November 9, 2026. Fiscal-year 2026 deficit estimates and comparison with the previous fiscal year.
https://www.cbo.gov/publication/most-recent
6. U.S. Government Accountability Office â Weapon Systems Annual Assessment, GAO-26-108457, July 2, 2026. Procurement delays, technology maturity, major acquisition program performance, and delivery schedules.
https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-26-108457
7. Brown University â Costs of War Project, Research Findings. Additional evidence on the human consequences, veteransâ obligations, and financial costs of military conflicts.
https://costsofwar.watson.brown.edu/findings
EDITORIAL TRANSPARENCY
This report is an investigative-philosophical analysis, not proof of an organized conspiracy to manufacture wars or deliberately impoverish Americans.
The military expenditure, contracting, federal deficit, war-cost, and procurement findings are derived from published research and government records. The biggest-fish metaphor and the proposition that institutional dependence can threaten long-term public welfare are interpretive frameworks that require case-specific evidence before they can be established as explanations for particular policies or wars.
The report recognizes that military preparedness and defense industries provide genuine public benefits, and that a countryâs fiscal difficulties have multiple causes. It does not conclude that military expenditures are inherently wasteful or that financial incentives alone explain geopolitical conflict.
Editorial status: Revised publication draft â ready for independent grading and final review.
đŠ¸đâ¤ď¸â¨ â Ocean of Love and Positivity
Blood connects us. The ocean unites us. Love guides us. Positivity illuminates our path.
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The Costs of Military Power and Institutional Dependency
Nov 9, 2026
The provided texts examine the paradox of national power through the metaphor of a massive fish consuming its own tail, symbolizing how oversized military and economic institutions can eventually drain the very society that sustains them. While acknowledging the necessity of defense readiness and geopolitical protection, the report highlights massive financial commitments, such as the trillions spent on post-9/11 conflicts and a heavily concentrated procurement sector that frequently experiences delays and budget overruns. It scrutinizes how institutional self-preservation can eclipse genuine public security needs, creating long-term fiscal burdens like veteran care and federal deficits that far outlive active combat. Ultimately, the sources advocate for rigorous public accountability and transparent oversight to ensure that national defense serves human well-being rather than becoming an unmitigated drain on future generations.