-
The Costs of War Hit Home
by Karen Dolan
07/02/03: (War Times) An elected official of East Cleveland reportedly made a plea at a recent public event for Bush to wage war in East Cleveland, as in Iraq, so that its roads, schools and crumbling infrastructure could then be rebuilt. Though said in jest, her remark reveals the desperate need felt by many states and cities for resources to be spent at home rather than on war.
The nation's governors warn that state deficits are the largest in more than 50 years. In the next year the deficits will run between $60 billion and $85 billion. This is between 13 percent and 18 percent of state expenditures.
The New York Times reported that some states have undertaken drastic cost-saving measures--including unscrewing every third light bulb in government buildings, having teachers double as janitors and releasing prison inmates early. Many states also reported having to lay off teachers, raise student tuitions or cut financial aid--sometimes all three.
Pressed to the brink of bankruptcy, states, cities and towns across the U.S. are recognizing the devastating costs to taxpayers of a perpetual war economy. In the months leading up to the war on Iraq, more than 160 local governments passed antiwar resolutions decrying the billions of dollars to be spent on the war while vital social programs face severe budget cuts.
SOCIAL PROGRAMS CUT
Los Angeles' resolution stated that the "cost [of the war] would be borne by the people of the City of Los Angeles, who rely on federal funds for anti-poverty programs, for workforce assistance, for housing, for education programs, for infrastructure and for the increased demands of homeland security."
The National Priorities Project (www.nationalpriorities.org) reports that, based on the conservative estimates of $100 billion for the Iraq war alone, taxpayers in Denver would pay $152 million of the war bill from their federal income taxes; in Atlanta, $80 million; in Des Moines, $42 million; in Detroit, almost $180 million; and in New York City, a crippling $2.4 billion.
According to the National Priorities Project, the proposed $46 billion increase in military spending for 2003 could be much better spent. California's share could put some 570,000 more children in Head Start; New York state could provide health coverage to almost 750,000 of its uninsured children; Oregon, facing the nation's most severe cuts in public education, could fund 7,000 new elementary school teachers and Mississippi could provide 3,000 affordable housing units to its low-income residents.
The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities reports that the proposed House budget plan includes more than $159 billion in cuts over the next decade to programs for low-income families. Programs such as Medicaid, the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), Social Security Insurance, Food Stamps, Temporary Assistance to Needy Families and many other programs will all be cut.
Alabama will lose at least $1 billion in funding for Medicaid and SCHIP under the proposed budget plan for 2004 to 2013. California will lose almost $10 billion.
Further worsening the situation, Congress is in the process of passing a bill giving somewhere between $350 billion and $726 billion in tax cuts to the wealthy. It has just given an additional $80 billion to cover the first month of Iraq war costs. And it is about to agree to a 10-year budget plan that devastates state funding for critical entitlement and low-income programs.
Karen Dolan directs the Cities for Peace program at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, D.C.
Where are the weapons of mass destruction?
-
The Costs of War Hit Home
by Karen Dolan
07/02/03: (War Times) An elected official of East Cleveland reportedly made a plea at a recent public event for Bush to wage war in East Cleveland, as in Iraq, so that its roads, schools and crumbling infrastructure could then be rebuilt. Though said in jest, her remark reveals the desperate need felt by many states and cities for resources to be spent at home rather than on war.
The nation's governors warn that state deficits are the largest in more than 50 years. In the next year the deficits will run between $60 billion and $85 billion. This is between 13 percent and 18 percent of state expenditures.
The New York Times reported that some states have undertaken drastic cost-saving measures--including unscrewing every third light bulb in government buildings, having teachers double as janitors and releasing prison inmates early. Many states also reported having to lay off teachers, raise student tuitions or cut financial aid--sometimes all three.
Pressed to the brink of bankruptcy, states, cities and towns across the U.S. are recognizing the devastating costs to taxpayers of a perpetual war economy. In the months leading up to the war on Iraq, more than 160 local governments passed antiwar resolutions decrying the billions of dollars to be spent on the war while vital social programs face severe budget cuts.
SOCIAL PROGRAMS CUT
Los Angeles' resolution stated that the "cost [of the war] would be borne by the people of the City of Los Angeles, who rely on federal funds for anti-poverty programs, for workforce assistance, for housing, for education programs, for infrastructure and for the increased demands of homeland security."
The National Priorities Project (www.nationalpriorities.org) reports that, based on the conservative estimates of $100 billion for the Iraq war alone, taxpayers in Denver would pay $152 million of the war bill from their federal income taxes; in Atlanta, $80 million; in Des Moines, $42 million; in Detroit, almost $180 million; and in New York City, a crippling $2.4 billion.
According to the National Priorities Project, the proposed $46 billion increase in military spending for 2003 could be much better spent. California's share could put some 570,000 more children in Head Start; New York state could provide health coverage to almost 750,000 of its uninsured children; Oregon, facing the nation's most severe cuts in public education, could fund 7,000 new elementary school teachers and Mississippi could provide 3,000 affordable housing units to its low-income residents.
The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities reports that the proposed House budget plan includes more than $159 billion in cuts over the next decade to programs for low-income families. Programs such as Medicaid, the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), Social Security Insurance, Food Stamps, Temporary Assistance to Needy Families and many other programs will all be cut.
Alabama will lose at least $1 billion in funding for Medicaid and SCHIP under the proposed budget plan for 2004 to 2013. California will lose almost $10 billion.
Further worsening the situation, Congress is in the process of passing a bill giving somewhere between $350 billion and $726 billion in tax cuts to the wealthy. It has just given an additional $80 billion to cover the first month of Iraq war costs. And it is about to agree to a 10-year budget plan that devastates state funding for critical entitlement and low-income programs.
Karen Dolan directs the Cities for Peace program at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, D.C.
Where are the weapons of mass destruction?
-
Yes, this is why I no longer teach. Couldn't afford it.
-
Gandalf_is_dead wrote:
- Yes, this is why I no longer teach. Couldn't afford
- it.
I hear unemployment is at a high now of 6.4%. Four of my tekkie friends just got laid off. Are you ready for the New Deal?
Hard to believe one man could do so much damage to not one (count 'em) but three countries in little more than two years. We'd be better off having an asteroid hit the Earth.
<center><marquee>******Where are the weapons of mass destruction?******Where are the weapons of mass destruction?******Where are the weapons of mass destruction?******Where are the weapons of mass destruction?******<center><marquee>
-
so Bush caused the stock markte buble and the stock market crash? and Bush made all those dot coms that didnt make money? im not a supporter of Bush, but cmon, lets get serious.
_______________________________________
"Generals dont run; during peace this prompts laughter, during war this prompts panic."
-
Olegious wrote:
- so Bush caused the stock markte buble and the stock
- market crash? and Bush made all those dot coms that
- didnt make money? im not a supporter of Bush, but
- cmon, lets get serious.
You draw a false conclusion and ridicule it? I think you are not being serious. Bush has made it all but impossible for the economy to recover. Instead of printing money and attacking Iraq he might as well have taken half the productive capacity of the US out to the desert and blown it up. It would have been cheaper and cost less lives.
<center><marquee>******Where are the weapons of mass destruction?******Where are the weapons of mass destruction?******Where are the weapons of mass destruction?******Where are the weapons of mass destruction?******<center><marquee>
-
It's funny since our economy started to fall in 1998. But it's still Bush's fault, the economy must have sensed that Bush will win, and started to act accordingly. Damn evil Bush.
<hr>
--"General Hammond, request permission to beat the crap out of this man." -Col. Jack O'Neill -Stargate SG-1
--Capt. Carter: "You think it might be a booby trap?"
â â Teal'c: "Booby?"
--"I'm a bomb technician, if you see me running, try to catch up" -in Russian on a bomb tech's shirt from "The Sum of All Fears"
--"All my life, I've been waiting for someone and when I find her, she's a fish!" -Tom Hanks "Splash"
--"War is not about who's right, it's about who's left." -Anders Russell
-
It's cool that you post all this political crap on the forums and all, but since you rarely even give your own opinion, I can't see why this isn't just spam. You didn't even write this. Typing 'ABC 123' would probably get locked, and it wouldn't take too much more time to go to cnn.com and copy/paste an article here.
Way to go mods. Idiots.
EDIT: Talking about MisterNiceGuy here. And no, I do not respect you because you have a high rank. You probably got that by putting stuff like this on the forums. Hey, good idea! I think I'll do the same thing and I'll increase my rank by posting stuff I'm too uncreative to write, boost my rank so others think I've written lots of posts, and at the same time avoid getting banned by the mods because they are too shallow to realize this isn't even a thoughtful post. How about this MisterNiceGuy, why don't you just tell us where you get your brilliant articles from, and save us the trouble of going to these forums at all!
<hr width="50%" align="left">c.787
Murphy's Law: If there is a possibility of several things going wrong, the one that will cause the most damage will be the one to go wrong. Corollary: If there is a worse time for something to go wrong, it will happen then.
c.787@charter.net
Message Edited on 07/07/0310:17PM by c.787
-
omg c.787, how dare you say bad about MNG?? He will now return fire and bombard you with endless rhetoric that will get everyone around him confused, but feeling that he must know more than them, and soon, you'll be the enemy of the forums!!!!
Anyway, I commented on this endless posts of articles, and I remember Geist did it too at around the time i stopped coming here. But otherwise, at least MNG is mature about his political "arguments" unlike some other people. So disagree or not, I enjoy some of MNG's posts. Just not these boring article wars, *yawn*
<hr>
--"General Hammond, request permission to beat the crap out of this man." -Col. Jack O'Neill -Stargate SG-1
--Capt. Carter: "You think it might be a booby trap?"
â â Teal'c: "Booby?"
--"I'm a bomb technician, if you see me running, try to catch up" -in Russian on a bomb tech's shirt from "The Sum of All Fears"
--"All my life, I've been waiting for someone and when I find her, she's a fish!" -Tom Hanks "Splash"
--"War is not about who's right, it's about who's left." -Anders Russell
-
Alright alright, I withdraw my attack. But really, could you at least find articles that aren't constantly saying how bad Bush is? We get the idea. Find a new topic.
<hr width="50%" align="left">c.787
Murphy's Law: If there is a possibility of several things going wrong, the one that will cause the most damage will be the one to go wrong. Corollary: If there is a worse time for something to go wrong, it will happen then.
c.787@charter.net
Posting Permissions
- You may not post new threads
- You may not post replies
- You may not post attachments
- You may not edit your posts
-
Forum Rules
Reply With Quote