Who are the really big spenders?
To the editor:
One major political party prefers to think of themselves as being the champion of the middle and lower income citizens, sort of a “communal” or a “caring” group. At least this is the image they try to project, and anyone that disagrees with them is portrayed as “selfish,” “mean spirited” and greedy. These folks are among the big (liberal) spenders. Many are decadent Democrats.
The other majority party professes to be lovers of freedom, (particularly from income taxes), patriotism, and a monopoly on Godliness. In their opinion, everyone should pay taxes and espouse a “straight line” approach to taxation, and anyone that happens to disagree with them is both unpaitriotic, less moral, and a proponent of wealth redistribution which is totally unfair. These folks are also big (conservative) spenders. Many of them are rapacious Republicans.
In recent years, a group of up and coming conservatives have come to the fore in both political parties. One being the “Blue Dog” Democrats and the other being the “Tea Party” Republicans. These two groups may just be the salvation of this republic. They are very fiscally responsible people. On TV recently you have probably noticed commercials made by some of the more senior members of Congress trying to marginalize them in order to maintain the status quo. This effort fails to recognize the status quo is what got us to the very edge of the financial cliff. These senior members of Congress and the “status quo” both need to be removed from the political process and the sooner the better. Hopefully in 2012 we will see another large surge of new and responsible members enter Congress. Currently both parties spend WAY TOO much time on re-election and partisan politics.
We need to remind ourselves that each and every penny spent by our government is authorized to be spent by our Congress. Not our Presidents but solely by Congress! Congress also determines all taxes, including all of the tax loop holes. While appraising this, let’s consider just exactly where both parties have spent a large portion of our tax revenues. According to a (33) page published report by the U.S. Congress House Committee on International Relations, (available on line), from 1776 to the present, the USA has dispatched military forces domestically and abroad, a total of 289 times, not counting the instances where we gave foreign aid alone, with no military involvement. For some unknown reason, we are obsessed with military control. We have paid a large price for this course of action. The best military numbers available report from 1776 to the present we have lost a total of 1,343,812 soldiers and have had 1,529,230 wounded soldiers. In our struggle to control others, we have destroyed millions of lives, both ours and others. Will you sleep better tonight?
The sun never sets on at least some of our military bases according to a Pentagon report. This report states that we have an excess of 700 military bases in 130 different foreign countries. Another Pentagon report states that we had 33,000 nuclear warheads at the peak of the “cold war.”
www.militaryindustrialcomplex.com contains a summary of Pentagon contracts since 10/30/2006 to 2010. The grand total of the dollar value of those contracts issued is $1,272,913,356,298………… for a total of 16,893 publicly reported defense contracts. For year 2010 alone, the value of contracts issued was $398,849,633,749………. Not exactly chump change.
According to that same website, the total money spent by the military alone for the period of time from 2000 to 2010 was $4,356,300,000,000 ($4.3trillion) and that DOES NOT include the cost of both the Iraq and the Afghan wars. That is a couple of trillion more that, for some unknown reason, was not included in the budget for the years of 2003 through 2010. It was spent “off line.” The only reason I could think of for this accounting variation was to create the illusion that the annual deficit was smaller than in fact it really was. In other words, fraud.
According to the verbosity of most members of Congress, the drivers of the long term deficit and national debt are entitlements. When they mention that Social Security is broke, they all neglect to mention the fact that Congress “borrowed” and spent $2.6 trillion from that fund and replaced it with pink treasury notes. It is gone, people. Spent!!!!!!!!! Some say stolen! A few members also include Pentagon spending, and only a very few of them mention the Military-Industrial-Complex.
If one considers the U.S. military spending from 2000 to 2010 of $4.356 trillion PLUS $2 trillion for the two ongoing “wars” you quickly realize the military has (and is) spending $6.356 trillion, or 43.8% of our entire national debt in the last 10 years. It is obvious where a disproportional amount of our tax dollars are being spent. Our Military Empire!! The USA — the world’s police force. A task that generates absolutely no return to the U.S. taxpayer.
Apparently it has been universally accepted that force and violence are necessary to man’s welfare here on earth. Thousands of books have been written and countless lives have been sacrificed in an effort to prove that one form of government is superior to others; but no one seriously considers the proposition that ALL government rests on force and violence that is sustained by soldiers, policeman, and courts, and is contrary to the ideal peace and order required for true progress and happiness of the human race. What happened to the notion that the peacemakers were the children of God?
We appear to have lost sight of the fact that less government equals more freedom.
Robert E. Workman
Cape Coral