How to Really Love Your Country: Five Objectives for True Patriots
1. How we spend our money
The U.S. is responsible for almost half of the world's annual military expenditures of over $1 trillion, yet President Bush approved another record increase in the U.S. defense budget for 2008. The total estimated cost of the Iraqi and Afghanistan conflicts is now $811 billion, much more than the $518 billion spent on the Vietnam War. Congressional Democrats estimate that the average American family of four has contributed over $20,000 to the war in the Middle East.
As 40% of each American citizen's tax bill - about $5000 a year - goes for military equipment that protects us from Cold War enemies, we spend only 1/10 of 1% of our GDP on infrastructure (in 2005), compared to 9% for China. The American Society of Civil Engineers gave D to D- grades to our drinking water, navigable waterways, and energy power grids. Every time our power structures go out or our roads and bridges crumble, the money needed to fix them is being spent in Iraq, or on unstable allies in Pakistan or Saudi Arabia.
2. What We Give to the World
According to the U.S. Congressional Research Service, nearly half of the guns sold to developing countries in 2005 came from the United States.
In 2003, 20 of the top 25 recipients of U.S. arms sales in the developing world were declared undemocratic or human rights abusers by the U.S. State Department's own Human Rights Report. --( the rest at the link)
