Provisional
Truth | Essays | April 22, 2007
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If YOU Were The Decider
A billion here,
a billion there and pretty soon you're talking some real
money, as it often is inaccurately attributed to late
Illinois Senator Everett Dirksen.
The cost of our
unilateral global war on terror since 9/11 is approaching a
very real $500 billion, all financed “off budget, off
balance sheet,” by the Federal Reserve, a privately held
corporation owned by its member-banks, which creates
Treasury Bonds from its magic, never-overdrawn checkbook.
A half-trillion
of additional national debt which now approaches $9
Trillion, not even counted with “normal” budget deficits
(about $2.4 trillion in this administration alone), but
together comprising this already staggering burden our
children and grandchildren will inherit.
Treasury bonds
created out of thin air by the Fed are sold to investors,
more than half now to foreign governments, including
China and Saudi Arabia, on which we now are dependent
for financing to keep our economic and war machines running.
As New York
Times columnist Paul Krugman has observed, “These days
Americans make a living by selling each other houses, paid
for with money borrowed from China.” He's not far off when
it comes to our newfound dependence on our foreign
“friends.” How long into the future may we count on their
largesse?
No wonder our
economy is doing well. $500 billion of fiscal stimulus, over
and above the several trillion of high-end tax cuts in 2001
and 2003. What better way to help stimulate an economy than
to keep giving money to those whose occupation is to break
very expensive things like cruise missiles and fighter jets
and tanks. Things that constantly must be replaced, and quickly, lest
the fighting “over there” become fighting “over here.”
(Forget you
ever heard that the Iraq War, Operation Iraqi Freedom,
originally – Freudianly – code named Operation Iraqi
Liberation – "OIL," would pay for itself with the sale of
Iraqi oil.)
To some though,
the amount is practically insignificant. At $100 billion a
year, the global war on terror represents only four percent
of a $2.5 trillion annual government budget, and a mere 0.8 of
one percent of the country's annual Gross Domestic Product
of $12.5 trillion. But it does help stimulate the economy.
It is important
to note, however, that government spending of any kind
helps stimulate the economy, a John Maynard Keynes theory
proven in the Great Depression, and military spending is but
one example.
Much else –
much good – could have been done with a half-trillion
Washingtons in the last five years, equally economically
stimulative. What would you have done with $500 billion if
you were the Decider? Here are several ideas on my
list:
With $500 billion, for example, we could have
given $1,600 checks payable to every man, woman, child and
illegal immigrant residing in this country to spend or save
as they saw fit.
$2,000 a year
could have been spent on
health care and health care insurance for each of the 50
million uninsured or underinsured Americans.
Non-defense research and development, about
$300 billion a year, could have been increased by a third -
$100 billion - each year. Maybe those cures for cancer or
diabetes or AIDS
instead would have been discovered.
Each of the 25 million 18-23-year-olds in the
country could have been given $16,000 for four years
of undergraduate college education ($4,000 each year).
How about $25,000 for installation of solar
electric and heating capability in each of 20 million homes
around the country?
One million new teachers, professors,
doctors, nurses and social workers could have been hired at
an average wage and benefit compensation of $100,000 per
year.
Or maybe the 100 largest US metropolitan
areas could have received $5 billion each over the
last 5 years to build, upgrade and subsidize mass transit
systems which would reduce our dependence on imported oil.
For crying out loud, we could have built
2,000 bridges to nowhere, at $250 million each - 40 in
each state, not only one in Alaska - and not a shot would have been
fired, not a single instance of traumatic brain injury or
limb amputation and, even better, no collateral damage, that
reprehensible “1984 newspeak” term for war-zone maiming and
murdering of innocent civilians including children.
Even the interest alone on $500 billion, say
$20 billion a year for the next, well, forever, could have
been used for something far more beneficial to Americans
than hand grenades and body armor.
Or, and it's just a thought, we could have
decided not to engage in a pre-emptive, regime-changing,
unpopular war, ruining our image and further damaging our
credit worldwide in the process,
and saved all that money, reducing the crushing burden of
debt we are in the process of dumping upon our next
generations. Likely they will not look kindly on their
"inheritance."
How would you spend $500 billion if you were
the Decider? Send me an
email with your ideas.
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