As world economies tank, the turbulent panic-stricken tenor of the White House becomes more strident. It's apparent with each passing pronouncement. Anyone who listens to the Bush administration's litany of rubbish about
stimulating the economy senses we’re in deep doo-doo, with things about to get a lot worse before they get better.
Like many engineers, I learned about guns versus butter in Economics 101, and it’s as plain as the bump on my nose that George Bush's massive tax cuts and war spending has created a huge deficit. Yes, the White House warned everyone to gird our loins for massive cuts in spending, even indicating which weapons systems would be cut. In truth, the defense budget continues to rise, with a lot more spending for war in the days to come.
This past December, Bush signed the Consolidated Appropriations Bill, providing an additional $70 billion for his wars. It gets worse. The Defense Appropriations bill, passed by Congress and signed by Bush prior to December 2007, heaped on nearly $12 billion more in Iraq-related war spending.
As you can see, cutting military spending is essentially theoretical. Cutting the domestic budget is the reality.
Now consider that the combined incomes of the 600 million people living in the 43 least developed countries in the world is about $150 billion. By way of comparison, US military spending over the past few years totaled nearly $3 trillion.
We know that 1.3 billion people in the world live on less than a dollar a day, and half the world's population exist on less than $2 a day. Yet, according to UNICEF, for about $80 billion -- which is the cost of the 200 airplanes that make up the US long-range bomber fleet -- the basic needs of every human being on earth could be met. The United Nations Development Program estimates the annual cost to bring education, health care, nutrition, and sanitation to the undeveloped world is $40 billion (that’s 100 planes).
If the idea of a Third World person living on a buck a day is too abstract, let's crunch through a few guns versus butter calculations that are closer to home.
The town I live in has a population of about 3700 people. The mean income is $66,500 a year, and my town’s taxpayers are being asked to ante up $1.8 million for Iraq war spending this year.
For the same amount of money almost 500 people could have been provided with top-flight health care. Or, nearly 3000 of my neighborhood's homes could have been retrofitted with renewable electricity sources. Or, we could have hired almost 50 public safety officers, or 31 new teachers (assuming they'd be paid about $58,000 annually, which they're not). Or, we could have granted nearly 300 college scholarships at $6000 each.
If you'd like to see what your fellow taxpayers are shouldering in Bush's money charade, check out the National Priorities Project
web site.
NPP is a 501(c)(3) research organization that analyzes federal data so that you can clearly understand how your tax dollars are spent. NPP focuses on the impact of federal spending and other policies at the national, state, congressional district, and local levels.
Calculate the
tradeoffs for your State, city, or town.
