So, I’m looking around on the internet just reading tonight and I noticed Keith Olberman is out. I don’t really care about Keith, so I read on and look for news on the wars. I never hear much any more about either war, even though there is constant turmoil in both Iraq and Afghanistan. It all seems pretty much null and void in the minds of the American people. I sometimes wonder if I am the only person that thinks spending all of this money to blow up a couple of countries is insane! I came across this site which seems interesting. http://armscontrolcenter.org/
According to this site, here is the defense budget for 2011 and it does match up with what I have found on the Whitehouse budget website as well.
Fiscal Year 2011 Budget Overview
For Fiscal Year (FY) 2011, which begins on October 1, 2010, the Obama
Administration has requested a base budget of $548.9 billion for the Department of
Defense (DoD). This is $18 billion, or 3.4 percent, above the appropriated Fiscal Year
2010 base budget of $531 billion.
In addition, the Administration has requested $159.3 billion for “Overseas
Contingency Operations,” to fight the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
This brings the Fiscal Year 2011 defense budget request to a total of $708.3
billion.
What I am noticing is that high cost for the two wars. I looked up the population of Iraq which is around 31.5 million. California has a population of around 37 million. What I am getting at is this:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget
Check out the federal budgeted money for California or any state for that matter. I think there is something wrong with this picture. That money spent on the wars could really be helpful back over here in our own country. Of course the conservative Republicans have other ideas. Here is where you can check out their proposal to reduce spending. http://rsc.jordan.house.gov/Solutions/SRA.htm
On the two page summary, I noticed many interesting cuts to everything from the arts and humanities to the repeal of the Davis Bacon Act which requires the government to pay the local prevailing wage. I wonder what’s up with that, less money for the common man, just trying to make a living of course.
The other day I was listening to the Ed Schultz radio show for a few minutes on my way home from school. Some one was sitting in for Ed. A guy called in who really cracked me up. He was on a rant about Senator John McCain and he said McCain has been taken care of by the government is whole life. This man couldn’t believe McCain’s stance on health care since McCain has essentially been taken care of with government health care his whole life. I had to laugh because it was essentially true, except for the stint he had when he was a POW. The politicians in office just don’t get it. They have everything at their finger tips like money, power, health insurance, great pensions and they just cannot see what has happened to the common worker in America.
The American people need to pull their head out of the sand and figure out what is really going on.
Big business and government combined is a lethal combination for the American worker. Labor unions have been destroyed over the last forty years. One of the last of the unions still standing are the teachers unions. They are the next to go. This is the way the American people are being programmed right now. There is a constant drumbeat against the teachers and their unions. We are being told how poor our education system is and it is the fault of the TEACHERS! Tenure is a dirty word. We are being programmed that it is the problem and it must go! I’m only throwing this out there because as a teacher, I can feel the target on my back and I can see what is going on. We, the people, are being programmed once again that business is good, privatization is good, and labor unions are bad, bad, bad!
All across the country we have business people getting into government. Here in Michigan we have our new governor, Rick Snyder, a business guy. I listened to his state of the state address and he was very short on anything specific in terms of cuts and spending for the most part. The big thing he talked about was building a bridge to Canada. Here is a transcript from his address. http://www.freep.com/article/20110120/NEWS15/110120009/1001/NEWS/Transcript-Read-and-watch-the-State-of-the-State
It had a lot of “fluff” but not much substance. I expect in April when he gives the next speech he mentioned, we will hear more specifics. I don’t think his address was much different than most others. I just would like to know what his plans are for the budget. He wants to change the small business tax but he doesn’t say how he’s going to pay for these changes. Some in K-12 education are worried that he is going to take from that budget to give to the public colleges. I don’t know what is going to happen, but I think it will mean more pain in education whatever is decided. This year I had to pay 3% more into my retirement with no additional benefit. Next year it could be more. We don’t have a contract and we are probably not much different than most schools in the state that are wondering what the budget is going to be.
The other day I was applying for a bus grant to take some of my art students up to the Kalamazoo Institute of Arts and I asked the school secretary what portion of our students was on free and/or reduced lunches. Our school was around 61% but she said one of the elementary schools is somewhere around 90%. These are scary numbers. We need jobs for American workers. I feel like I’m on a wheel that just keeps going round and round. War, what is it good for? What is it really doing for the American people? We know what it is doing for some corporations. http://www.presstv.ir/usdetail/160995.html
You must listen to this video because it is so interesting. The wars will continual until they are financially unsustainable because it is in the best interest of corporations. War, what is it good for?
