Please look carefully at this pie chart. The budget axe is coming out, and as usual its wielders will do their best to destroy government programs that could actually help all of us. Programs and public services can either be directly cut or given a slower death by privatization. In privatization, a governmental service is starved of funds so they are prevented from doing a good job, or we are told the service is failing even though it’s not. The next step is making what is owned by the public private, allowing corporations to make even more money with their acquisitions while cutting services and paying employees less.
At the same time, the profiteering corporations and intelligence agencies are given more and more taxpayer money though the military budget. Currently, adding 30 billion to the budget is being proposed, and the president has indicated that the budget needs to be used in war. To get an idea of how much is currently given the military, the budget pie above gives an idea.
Many of the axe wielders have worked over the years to convince us that the government is no good, while they lived off the government's paychecks and worked to create the worst government ever. They were also in a position to make this a government the rich could buy, consistently legislating for the benefit of the wealthy interests and for the public's pain. And they have been quite successful. We pay their wages as they tear the country and the world apart.
The budget axe is one way to destroy programs that actually help the people of our country. People are said to be asking for, "Free health care." "Free Social Security" "Free Medicare". But THEY ARE NOT AND NEVER HAVE BEEN FREE! THEY HAVE NEVER BEEN GIFTS TO THE UNWORTHY. THEY ARE PROGRAMS THAT HEALTHY SOCIETIES AROUND THE WORLD HAVE HAD FOR YEARS.
We refuse to pay for what the rest of the civilized world has in part because we are giving such huge amounts of tax payers money to the military and defense. t
The American taxpayer pays for the budget through taxes. Any program funded by the government will be paid for by the public. In a democracy, this means we should have a major say in what we give our money for.
In the US budget
and other payout programs, at least 55%
of the taxpayers’ money goes each year to support war, covert military actions and spying on the American people, weaponry
and the support of nuclear weapons set on hair trigger that can destroy the
world. We support hundreds of unneeded military bases across the world, a
number of which come equipped with golf courses. And corporations are being paid
for all variety of military functions. Richard
Cheney and his friends are feeding well from the government trough, while men,
women and children, including our troops, are being killed and maimed in the
pre-emptive wars of America. Paid for by
us, the taxpayers.
Meanwhile the
infrastructure of the country is falling apart, we have new jobs but most are
not jobs with living wages, we have broader health care but it is still designed
to offer a big gift of wealth to insurance companies and big pharma. And the government is getting ready to sell off
more of our land and infrastructure to private big business.
It is mind boggling to learn that over half the federal budget goes to the Military Industrial Complex and intelligence. We pay for weapons, we pay military salaries (though nothing compared to the MIC), we pay for wars, we pay for nuclear weapons, we pay to have ourselves spied upon. Does this seem crazy to you? It does.
Worse still, when government decides to cut the budget, where do they cut? The very programs that make our lives livable. And why? Because we are spending too much. And where are we spending it? For the military and intelligence. And there is the possibility that we may be spending it on even more terrible wars than the ones we are currently involved in.
Maybe the issue is that some US citizens are very afraid that ISIS will get them or their families. They fear what might be underneath a headscarf even though they have never feared a nun in a habit. They think Mexicans are rapists. The news scares them. The government scares them.
Paying over half the government budget for the military makes sense to them. The reduction in fear that this expense gives them is much more important to than their families receiving medical care. It is more important that having an good public education for their children. It is more important than dealing with climate change and the death of the planet.
I really don't think there could be many who are that afraid, but I could be wrong. There might also be a group of citizens who like the idea of having 800 mostly ineffectual military bases around the world because it makes them feel strong, or they are hoping that our wars and weapons of destruction might bring on the apocalypse.
But do we really want to have our tax pockets picked by the wealthy who benefit from the Military Industrial Complex? When the axe comes out, do we really want to destroy programs for the people of our country and pay instead for war?
