| Defending What?
Hooray, the National Debt is paid off! Well, it would have been completely paid off this year if all of our resources were not diverted to a massive military expansion plus two wars and tax cuts for the privileged. Tax cuts that were sold to increase our wealth and employment instead collapsed the economy, forcing people onto unemployment and food stamps.
One of the beneficiaries of the tax cuts for the privileged, billionaire Pete Peterson of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation and founder of the Blackstone Group spent 458 million dollars of his personal wealth over the last four years to sell the Idea that Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid are going broke so we need drastic spending cuts cuts. Last Friday Denny Rehberg was one of 218 all Republican Congressmen, the ONLY one we can influence, voted to renege on an agreement they took the country hostage to get only last fall. That deal was to force the most vulnerable Americans to carry an equal share of the budget cuts with the Defense Department.
I just watched part of a video where military contractors cut the legs off a live goat and they reportedly also disemboweled live animals- I was too sickened to watch any further. Private contractors reportedly mutilate more than 10,000 live animals each year at your expense for training purposes. Our military spending exceeds the rest of the world combined.
Money spent on food stamps, Medicaid and the child tax credit stays in the country allowing other Americans the opportunity to earn that money. The same cannot be said about defense spending. For instance, the Defense Department is purchasing 21 helicopters at $16.4 million each. From Russia, putting zero dollars or jobs back into the American economy.
Now Pakistan and Iraq want America to buy them Russian helicopters, too. Most of us don't have millions of extra dollars to buy a congressperson's vote, but we can remember that our Denny Rehberg has chosen to send the bill for the bloated military budget to us instead of the Pete Petersons who could easily afford it.
Carla Augustad |
