The Only Word For It Is ‘Insanity’
Yesterday, the House passed a $646 billion dollar defense bill for the budget year beginning October 1st – yes, you read that correctly. There are a few arguments going on about the bill, but none over its sum.
Do you have any idea what an infusion of one third of that money into a healthcare program would do? Or, for that matter, how significant one sixth of an infusion of that total into education would be? There are people still living in FEMA trailers and $646 billion dollars is being spent on defense.
Low income housing, alternative fuels research, AIDS research, Cancer research, public works programs, agricultural aid and development programs, minimum wage increases – the list is endless. In fact, how about actually giving your overworked, overstretched military a decent pay raise so they don’t look at all the independent contractors in their midst and wonder why the hell the bothered to join the armed forces when they could be making six figures running laundry facilities? These are the same individuals often sited in patriotic speeches about ‘staying the course’, the very ones whose families haven’t seen them for God knows how long and are living off of next to nothing in many cases.
Of course, the bill does include funds for US-Israeli anti-missile programs…
“Republicans were successful in adding money for missile defense programs when they tied the money to Israel. The House voted to increase the president’s request by $205 million for U.S.-Israeli anti-missile programs.”
So, instead of focusing on, say, taking care of sorting out the destruction of one of your largest cities several years ago, best to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on a joint missile program with the Israelis.
One wonders if there is any point in many Americans having children. Beyond the necessities of a two income household just to get by in 2007, imagine the debt that a generation yet unborn will inherit when they’re old enough to have to work three jobs just to buy wieners and hotdog buns.
The following chart is, of course, old (2005). And given the increase in US spending in 2006 and 2007, the spending of others, primarily China and Russia, is bound to follow suit. That’s what we like to refer to as ‘arms proliferation’. Interestingly, if you add up the spending of all the other nations on the chart it totals $410.4 billion dollars. The US budget alone was $522 billion. Of course, they’re at war, which you’d think would be a factor until you stop and realize that this sort of spending is comparable to that of the Reagan adminsitration, and they weren’t - unless you count the Cold War, and then, well, anything’s justifiable I suppose.
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May 18th, 2007 at 3:04 pm
God (should one believe in a god) help us all.
May 18th, 2007 at 4:05 pm
Did you know that 1 in 5 military families relies on food stamps to get by? Congress wanted to give soldiers a 3.5% raise. W said 3% was sufficient and he wouldn’t sign if it was 3.5%. The .5% represents $6 a month. SIX f’ing dollars!
W says he supports the troops. Sounds like he supports the weapons industry a little more. I guess the troops can’t afford to match the campaign donation amount.
May 18th, 2007 at 4:55 pm
Things are getting worse here in Canada too…
The other day little Johnny came up to the Grade One Teacher and says…” Teacher I’m having a bad day…my Mom put Jello instead of Pudding in my Lunch…”
It seemed cute at the Time…till little Dale entered the Conversation and said…” You have NO Idea what a BAD Day is…”
I couldn’t believe this coming out of the mouth of a 6 year old.
Apparently there are currently about 5 out of 21 Grade One Students ” starving “….
The Teacher says…” You know how you can tell which Kids are starving? They’ll eat anything…”
The number of Homeless Children in Calgary has double this Year…
What does that tell you about the Government…
May 18th, 2007 at 6:12 pm
According to Linda McQuaig’s latest book “Holding the Bully’s Coat” that Canadian figure is on the rise.
May 18th, 2007 at 9:01 pm
Every politician should be required to live at least one week on the income that the poorest people in their state live on. I’ll go so far as to guess that their would be a sudden surge to increase spending on social programs that benefit the people that need it the most.
When I was completing my student teaching at an inner-city Cleveland high school, I would bring fruits, bagels, and peanut butter to class for the kids to eat. On an almost daily occassion, some of the kids would approach me after class asking if they could take the leftovers home to their family…
Meanwhile on Capitol Hill, somebody sits in front of a computer tracking their Lockheed and Halliburton stocks opening and closing prices for the day.
May 18th, 2007 at 9:23 pm
I read something once, probably on this site, about war being the largest industry in the world. It’s truly sad when a government will spend that kind of money on death machines and such, and not spend it to help their own people. BB’s comment just made me cry.
May 18th, 2007 at 9:29 pm
I read something once, probably on this site, about war being the largest industry in the world. It is truly sad when a government will spend that much money on death machines and such, instead of spending it to help their own people. BB’s comment made me cry.
May 19th, 2007 at 2:31 am
“One wonders if there is any point in many Americans having children.”
This point should be explored for so many reasons.
May 19th, 2007 at 7:30 am
Anyone studying the Earth from the outside - somewhere in the reaches of space - must think that we are collectively such a bunch of idiots…
May 19th, 2007 at 8:23 am
To add to the insanity (from the great Chalmers Johnson
http://www.antiwar.com/engelhardt/) :
“The DOD always tries to minimize the size of its budget by representing it as a declining percentage of the gross national product. What it never reveals is that total military spending is actually many times larger than the official appropriation for the Defense Department. For fiscal year 2006, Robert Higgs of the Independent Institute calculated national security outlays at almost a trillion dollars – $934.9 billion to be exact – broken down as follows (in billions of dollars):
Department of Defense: $499.4
Department of Energy (atomic weapons): $16.6
Department of State (foreign military aid): $25.3
Department of Veterans Affairs (treatment of wounded soldiers): $69.8
Department of Homeland Security (actual defense): $69.1
Department of Justice (1/3rd for the FBI): $1.9
Department of the Treasury (military retirements): $38.5
NASA (satellite launches): $7.6
Interest on war debts, 1916-present: $206.7
Totaled, the sum is larger than the combined sum spent by all other nations on military security.”
And there you have it - even worse than we ever think.
Indeed, imagine what this money could do if it were spent otherwise or not taxed from the American people or (to a substantial degree) essentially created through inflationary money printing in the first place. As always the poor suffer.
May 19th, 2007 at 2:11 pm
Canada is raising its wages for military members because of cost of living. I get a guaranteed raise every year because of it. There are also a lot of non-profit supports in Canada for the armed forces and their families and they get better every year. This includes help for relocating families and programs for families who’s main provider might be overseas.
May 21st, 2007 at 1:15 am
Is this money being spent on defense, or is it being spent on offense? Ha!
May 21st, 2007 at 7:52 am
Communist Dan, thats brilliant. It reminds me of that show that Morgan Spurlock did called 30 days. I think if the uber privileged W was forced to spend 30 days living the lives of the people he takes money from to funnel into his war machine, he may be forced to see that there are real life consequences for his actions.
On the other hand, he would probably fight tooth and nail to avoid living in any way except the one to which he has become accustomed.