Bombs get the cash - Bridges are just dull
With the recent collapse of a bridge in Minnesota, and with another 77,000 bridges on the "structurally deficient" list, one can reasonably ask - what does the richest country on Earth spend it's money on?
Budget analysts in Congress last week reckoned the $500bn (£250bn) of taxpayers money allocated so far on wrecking and then rebuilding Iraq will double before it's all over to $1 trillion. The war now accounts for 10 per cent of everything the government spends.Joseph Stiglitz, the Nobel Prize winner in Economics, caused a fuss amongst the neo-Con hordes when he stated that the Iraq war would cost in excess of a trillion dollars. This estimate, which was once considered provocatively high, now appears overly optimistic. But how do the Bush gang plan to pay for this?
The president’s latest budget proposal, while calling for deep cuts to Medicare and other domestic programs, dramatically ramps up funding for fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.So, whilst maintaining tax cuts for the richest members of the population, Team Bush suggest cuts to Medicare. Let the poorest members of society pay the price for the Iraq war. The richest sections of society can continue to cheerlead a war that it is costing them nothing to support.
No bombs are falling on the US, there is no food rationing; so, to all intents and purposes, it's like they are not at war at all. Who would find it hard to support that?
But the cost of the war is enormous. So, whilst Americans die on bridges due to a lack of investment in the country's infrastructure, it is worth asking just what that enormous sum spent on Iraq could have paid for elsewhere.
Joseph Stiglitz:
MJ: You predicted that the total cost of the Iraq war would top a trillion dollars. Can you put a number like that into perspective?
JS: That was last year. I think it is clear from what has happened since then that a trillion dollars was a vast underestimate. We are talking at least between one and two trillion dollars now. To put that into perspective, President Bush went to the American people at the beginning of his second term, saying that we have a major crisis with our Social Security system. For somewhere between a half and quarter of the cost of the war in Iraq you could have fixed all the problems associated with Social Security for the next 75 years and still have had a lot left over. Put in another way: We are now spending something like $10 billion a month—$120 billion dollars a year—on Iraq. The amount the entire world gives in foreign aid, on an annual basis, is about half that.
Those figures are simply extraordinary, especially when one considers what this amount of money could have achieved had it been spent usefully on social programmes. But, to the neo-Cons, social programmes smell of socialism, so they would rather spend the money losing a war in Iraq than in providing free health care for all regardless of ability to pay.
From a Western European perspective that lack of foresight is simply staggering. The people of Europe see free health care as their right, and woe betide any government that attempted to take it away from them.
Indeed, during his first campaign to get re-elected, Tony Blair was memorably confronted by the relative of a cancer sufferer who was unhappy regarding the quality of the free health care her partner was receiving. The event shook Blair and defined his re-election campaign.
The notion of the British electorate allowing their government to spend 10% of all their wealth in Iraq whilst failing to provide a free health system is unthinkable.
And yet, in the US, this is actually what is happening. The collapse of that bridge is Minnesota is symbolic of the priorities of the Bush administration. There's always enough money for war and missiles and tax cuts for the wealthy, there's never enough for infrastructure and Medicare.
Why is he allowed to get away with this?
Click title for full article.
4 comments:
I would find it amusing that the extreme left was trying to blame the horrible bridge collapse if it weren't so pathetic. Of course these are the same nutjobs who tried to blame Hurricane Katrina on Bush. And they wonder why they have no credibility.
I would find it amusing that the extreme left was trying to blame the horrible bridge collapse if it weren't so pathetic.
Once again you seem to see no left other than "the extreme left".
Of course these are the same nutjobs who tried to blame Hurricane Katrina on Bush.
The latest Rasmussen Reports survey shows that 41% give the President poor marks for handling the crisis.
Are forty one percent of Americans "the extreme left"?
And they wonder why they have no credibility.
I think the fact that the Republicans were so heavily defeated at the following elections says more about who lost credibility with the American public.
Once again you seem to see no left other than "the extreme left".
Not true, however the sane and moderate left is not claiming that George Bush is responsible for a bridge collapse.
The latest Rasmussen Reports survey shows that 41% give the President poor marks for handling the crisis.
Poor marks for the way one handled a crisis and accusing one of being responsible for the crisis are completely different things of course. Reasoned people can disagree over how a crisis was handled. Reasonable people do not claim that the President is responsible for Hurricane Katrina and the resulting flooding due to his climate policies.
I think the fact that the Republicans were so heavily defeated at the following elections says more about who lost credibility with the American public.
What's the approval rating of the Democrat controlled Congress? That aside, attempting to transform my claim that radical nutjobs who claim that Bush is responsible for collapsing bridges and hurricanes have no credibility to a claim that all Democrats have no credibility is not particularly deft.
Poor marks for the way one handled a crisis and accusing one of being responsible for the crisis are completely different things of course. Reasoned people can disagree over how a crisis was handled. Reasonable people do not claim that the President is responsible for Hurricane Katrina and the resulting flooding due to his climate policies.
The person who used the phrase "blame Katrina on President Bush" was yourself Jason. I took it that you were referring to his handling of the crisis as you'd be hard put to find a Liberal who blames him for the weather itself.
You're making and knocking down your own strawman arguments now. You go find me a Liberal who blamed Bush for the weather itself.
What's the approval rating of the Democrat controlled Congress?
Extremely low.
"Experts attribute the woeful rankings to an inability to force a change in direction in Iraq, the priority Democrats campaigned on to gain power in both the House of Representatives and the Senate in last November's elections."
It's actually through being unable to change the policies that you support that has led to their unpopularity.
That aside, attempting to transform my claim that radical nutjobs who claim that Bush is responsible for collapsing bridges...
Where in the above article do I make that claim? I am talking about where the richest country in the world chooses to allocate it's resources. I never say that Bush is responsible for a bridge collapse. Or are you going to say you weren't referring to me but use the old Fox line of "some people say....?"
And even if some people do say this, why are you bringing that up here where I don't?
Post a Comment