FROM DAVID SWANSON:
[NOTE FROM QUEEN: David titled his piece that he sent to me in an email, "People v. U.S. Govt." I believe that we must stop identifying "the government" as our enemy. We ARE the government. Also by referring to the enemy as "the government" it makes the target more elusive and more difficult to impossible to correct and/or act against. No, our enemies are real people. By and large they are most of the elected officials that we currently have in Washington DC who are millionaires in addition to most of those who are not. This also includes Barack Obama and the majority of his cabinet. President Obama MIGHT listen to the people if we shout long enough. Almost NONE OF HIS CABINET WOULD LISTEN IF WE SCREAMED THE REST OF OUR LIVES. The same may be said for most of Congress--whether they are Republican, Corporate Centrist Democrat or Tea Party.]
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Statistically speaking, virtually nobody in the United States of America knows that we spend more on the military than the rest of the world combined, that we could eliminate most of our military and still have the world’s largest, that over half of the money our government raises from income taxes and borrowing gets spent on the military, that our wars (outrageously costly as they may be) cost far less than the permanent non-war military budget, or that most of the financial woes of the federal and state governments could be solved just by ending a war in Afghanistan that two-thirds of Americans oppose.
One reason we know that nobody knows these things is that they are not spoken on television. Another is that we have polls, including this one showing that only 25% of Americans think our country should spend three times as much on the military as the next most militarized nation, but only 32% (not 75%) think we currently spend too much. In reality, of course, we spend much more than three times what China spends. A bill in Congress to restrict US military spending to three times the next most militarized nation might carry big popular support, but Congress would never pass it in the absence of intense public pressure, because it would require major cuts to the US military.
mg src=”http://www.warresisters.org/pages/images/FY09pie_head.gif” alt=”Where Your Income Tax Money Really Goes FY 2009″ width=”473″ height=”64″ />
Total Outlays (Federal Funds): $2,650 billion
MILITARY: 54% and $1,449 billion
NON-MILITARY: 46% and $1,210 billion
BUT OUR GOVERNMENT LEADERS IN WASHINGTON (CORPORATE CENTRIST DEMOCRATS AND REPUBLICAN/TEA PARTY TRY TO DECEIVE US. They know damn well what they are doing.
HOW THESE FIGURES WERE DETERMINED
urrent military” includes Dept. of Defense ($653 billion), the military portion from other departments ($150 billion), and an additional $162 billion to supplement the Budget’s misleading and vast underestimate of only $38 billion for the “war on terror.” “Past military” represents veterans’ benefits plus 80% of the interest on the debt.*
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The Government Deception
The pie chart below is the government view of the budget. This is a distortion of how our income tax dollars are spent because it includes Trust Funds (e.g., Social Security), and the expenses of past military spending are not distinguished from nonmilitary spending. For a more accurate representation of how your Federal income tax dollar is really spent, see the large chart (top).
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Source: Congressional Budget Office for FY2008
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These figures are from an analysis of detailed tables in the “Analytical Perspectives” book of the Budget of the United States Government, Fiscal Year 2009. The figures are federal funds, which do not include trust funds — such as Social Security — that are raised and spent separately from income taxes. What you pay (or don’t pay) by April 15, 2008, goes to the federal funds portion of the budget. The government practice of combining trust and federal funds began during the Vietnam War, thus making the human needs portion of the budget seem larger and the military portion smaller.
*Analysts differ on how much of the debt stems from the military; other groups estimate 50% to 60%. We use 80% because we believe if there had been no military spending most (if not all) of the national debt would have been eliminated.
ADDENDUM FROM THE QUEEN
A week or so ago I wrote a post pointing out that the millionaires who run our nation from Washington DC could end unemployment in the USA within 7 months simply by ending the War in Afghanistan today.
The millionaire elected officials in Congress–Republicans, Tea Party and Democrats alike continue to focus on anything but job creation. They act as if their hands are tied–nothing but propaganda. The overwhelming majority of the elected officials in Congress, unlike the majority of Americans profit from the status quo and the close relationship that Wall Street has with corporate welfare.
IF THEY REALLY WANTED TO END UNEMPLOYMENT, THEY WOULD END THE WAR IN AFGHANISTAN AND BRING ALL THE US TROOPS HOME FROM AFGHANISTAN AND IRAQ. With this one act they could end all unemployment in the USA in 7 weeks.
$2 billion a week! That sounds like a lot of money and it is. But ordinary Americans are not like the greedy shysters in Congress and on Wall Street. Unlike them, money for us does not have an intrinsic value in and of itself. We see money as a means to an end where many of them see money as an end in and of itself.
