The $2-trillion rat hole
What is, versus what could be
By Deirdre Griswold
What's $87 billion? It's become more a symbol
than a number. It's a shortcut for saying that the government
ignores people's needs here in the United States while spending
huge sums on the conquest and occupation of Iraq and
Afghanistan.
Will it be the last little straw that buckles the camel's
back like a ton of bricks?
You hear it mentioned when another piece of the
infrastructure crumbles, or state workers are laid off or
further inroads are made into vital services. When the news
media ask people on the street for their comments, they angrily
bring up the $87 billion.
It's a lot of money. It comes to $300 for every single
person in the United States. Any worker told that the
government was not going to spend that money and would give it
back to them in a refund would consider that a very special
day.
$87B tip of iceberg
But actually, that $87 billion is just the tip of the
iceberg.
It refers to a "supplemental" appropriation passed by
Congress on top of the already huge military budget for the
coming year.
Here's the breakdown on military spending for fiscal years
2003 and 2004:
For FY2003, which covered the period of the massive assault
on Iraq, Congress approved a Pentagon budget of $364.4 billion.
But in April of this year, it gave the war makers another $62.4
billion in a "supplemental" bill to cover the Iraq war.
Now comes FY2004. It took all of 25 minutes on Sept. 17 for
the conference committee that reconciles the House and Senate
versions of the military spending bill to approve an even
larger appropriation than last year: $368.2 billion.
Then, adding insult to injury, the Bush administration said
that wasn't enough. They needed more for the occupation and
"rebuilding" of Iraq and Afghanistan. So they got the generous
guardians of the public treasury to slip them another
"supplemental" $87 billion. Add the two together and you get
$455.2 billion for FY2004.
If you add up the Pentagon budgets for both years, plus the
"supplementals," the total comes to $882 billion. Do the math
on that and you'll see that, over these two years, the average
family of four is expected to pay about $12,160, or more than
$3,041 per individual, for war.
What could be done with the money
The hard-working and increasingly low-paid people of this
country have many other things they could do with that money.
Like getting your teeth fixed, or paying on your student loans
so your bank account isn't seized by the IRS, or paying down
your credit card debt.
But instead, this government of, by and for the rich will be
using it to build submarines, fighter jets and missiles.
Last January, before the war started, Yale University
economist William D. Nordhaus predicted that a war with Iraq
could cost the economy a total of $1.6 trillion over the next
decade. (Washington Post, Jan. 8)
With growing resistance in Iraq to foreign domination, and
the reluctance of other countries to help pay for a war they
never thought should have happened, this estimate will
undoubtedly turn out to be conservative.
New homes for a quarter of the population
Talk about trillions and most people's eyes glaze over. It's
hard to wrap your head around such immense sums. So let's break
them down.
Take the figure of $2 trillion. That's how much the
Congressional Budget Office, in a report released last January,
estimated the federal government would spend over the next five
years on "national defense."
Think about this for a minute: Two trillion is enough money
to build brand-new $100,000 houses and apartments for 20
million families--more than a quarter of the population of the
whole United States.
What a great tax "refund" that would be for lower-income
people. Imagine wiping out homelessness and substandard housing
in one fell swoop! And imagine how many millions of jobs that
would create, not only in construction but also in
manufacturing all the items needed to furnish an attractive and
comfortable home.
Right now all but a few states are in crisis because their
revenues are down and they can't print money like the federal
government. Their budget cuts are affecting county and city
governments, too. As a result, the biggest cutbacks in years
have just begun in schools, libraries, fire stations, parks,
medical programs, senior centers and scores of other vital
services.
About 1 million people are losing Medicaid coverage this
year, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
Higher education has been cut in 13 states. Elementary and
secondary education has been cut in nine. Subsidized childcare
for low-income families has been cut in 18 states and the
District of Columbia. Desperate parents have to choose between
either risking their children's safety or risking their
jobs.
With the cutbacks, the jobs of hundreds of thousands, even
millions, of teachers, librarians, fire fighters, social
workers, meat inspectors and other public workers are on the
line.
As the layoffs kick in, the weakened economy will take
another severe hit in the one area--services--that was supposed
to compensate for the shrinking industrial work force.
Get rid of budget deficits
How big are the budget deficits that are driving all this
pain?
In FY2003, state budget deficits added up to about $76
billion, according to the National Conference of State
Legislatures. Just the "supplemental" federal spending for the
war in Iraq in the same year would almost cover that.
For FY2004, the state deficits are expected to jump to as
high as $85 billion. But that would still be covered by the $87
billion in the newest "supplemental" appropriation for war and
occupation.
If the working class controlled the destiny of this country,
wouldn't the welfare of the people be our priority--not an
endless and expensive state of war that makes the U.S. more
hated, not more secure?
U.S. soldiers are now dying every day in Iraq and
Afghanistan, as resistance to foreign occupation grows. The $87
billion not only pays for this repression of the people but is
also earmarked for building puppet governments packed with
former exiles like Ahmed Chalabi, a convicted financial felon
who hadn't been in Iraq for 40 years until he was installed as
a leader by U.S. troops.
This money is also going to U.S. corporations close to the
Bush administration, like Halliburton. Its affiliate Kellogg
Brown & Root got contracts to rebuild the infrastructure in
Iraq--not to help the people there but so other U.S.
corporations can profitably take out the oil and natural gas.
Vice President Dick Cheney, even as he sits in the White House,
gets $1 million a year from Halliburton in "pension" money from
his days as CEO of the company.
So that's it--the problem is the criminal corporate ruling
class, not how much wealth there is. There's plenty of wealth
already to build a harmonious society in which no one goes
hungry, homeless or lacking in any basic human need. The
problem is to get rid of this capitalist economic system, which
is uncontrollably addicted to profit and war.
Reprinted from the Oct. 30, 2003, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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