Well, you could afford to take of your veterans with a proper welfare system in place, you just choose not to.
Seriously, most of those who are now arguing that we should take care of the domestic poor instead of helping foreigners are those that couldn't give two shits about the domestic poor at any other time of the year.
Agreed on the second part btw.
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I also agree that the argumwnt doesn't make much sense, but the bulk of the current immigrants are actually among the most educated portion of the Syrian population, the former upper midfle class prior to this chaos of civil war & Isis. Lots of university graduates in there.