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An Alternative to
Endless War and Perpetual Poverty
By TODD CHRETIEN
The U.S. government spent $2.25 trillion
last year, not counting Social Security. This pile of dollar
bills could be laid out end to end and stretch from the earth
to the sun and back, and still have enough left over to get to
Mars.
According to the War Resisters
League, about half of this eye-popping sum goes to military spending.
The League arrives at this
figure by adding the official Pentagon budget for 2006 ($450
billion), plus the "supplemental" funds that Congress
granted for the occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq ($120 billion),
plus the Department of Energy's nuclear weapons maintenance and
development costs ($17 billion), plus veterans' benefits ($76
billion), plus the portion of federal debt interest payments
accrued from past military spending (at least $275 billion),
plus another $10-20 billion from various federal departments
that goes toward military costs.
Lest you imagine that rank-and-file
soldiers and sailors are rolling in the dough, keep in mind that
only $110 billion of military spending goes to salaries, and
only $76 billion for VA benefits. In fact, starting pay for an
Army private is about $16,000 a year.
By way of comparison, China
spent $35 billion on its military last year. Since the former
USSR collapsed in 1991, U.S. military spending has increased
by over 50 percent. By and large, this obscene military budget
inflation has been a bipartisan effort, with the parties squabbling
over this or that high-tech system, and this or that base closure.
* *
*
THE PEOPLE of Iraq and Afghanistan
are suffering most acutely from the U.S. government's militarism.
But working-class people here in the U.S. are bearing the costs
as well.
Over the past few years, the
Bush administration and Congress have cut billions of dollars
in social spending, hitting the poorest people in our society
the hardest. These cuts have done real and lasting damage to
millions of people's lives.
But to understand the structural
role of the federal budget in maintaining inequality in U.S.
society, you have to step back from the budget cuts and look
at the overall budget itself.
There is no better way to understand
the bipartisan consensus in Washington than to compare the endless
rhetoric of both parties about "putting education first"
with the actual amount they are willing to spend on it.
Federal budgets are notoriously
difficult to understand because of all the small print, but the
U.S. Department of Education's budget is around $70 billion,
depending on exactly how you count it. This has remained relatively
stable over the last 10 years, going up and down by 10 percent
per year.
The Education Department estimates
that total education spending in the U.S. is around $909 billion
(K-12 and college, public and private), most of it funded at
the state and local level.
These figures tell you two
things: First, that the federal government doesn't really care
about education at all, as it funds less than 10 percent of it;
and two, that military spending exceeds all spending on
education at all levels. So the next time your hear a
politician talking about education, keep these figures in mind.
The fact that the federal government
refuses to take responsibility for funding public education means
that local school districts are left to survive off local property
taxes, which is one of the main reasons for the dramatic inequality
between schools. Districts with high property taxes (in upper-middle
class and rich areas) do fine, while districts with low property
taxes (in working-class suburbs, inner cities and rural areas)
get--to paraphrase Bush--left behind.
The easiest way to redress
inequality in our schools would be for the Department of Education
to exchange budgets with the Department of Defense.
While this might be considered
"unrealistic," let's take a moment to look at the potential
benefits before we dismiss it out of hand.
As for the Pentagon, it would
have to get by on $70 billion a year, which would mean spending
only twice as much as China. This would still leave the United
States with the largest military budget in the world--though
it would require bringing U.S. troops home from Iraq and Afghanistan,
and closing hundreds of overseas military bases.
As for the Education Department,
let's just give it the $450 billion that the Pentagon lists as
its official budget, plus the $100 billion used to occupy Iraq
and Afghanistan. Right away, you can see the impact--a more than
500 percent increase in the amount the government spends on education.
What could we do with that
money? Here's a proposed budget (amendments are welcome):
* $75 billion: Existing
DoE budget
* $75 billion: Hire
1.5 million new teachers at $50,000 per year in salary and benefits
* $200 billion: Build
10,000 new schools at $25 million a piece
* $250 billion: Double
the number of students receiving Pell Grants to 10 million, and
double maximum grants to $10,000.
What do these figures mean
in human terms? Hiring 1.5 million teachers would roughly double
the number of public school teachers in America and allow us
to cut class sizes in half. We could recruit and train teachers
from the poorest communities with the promise of a good-paying
union job in exchange for teaching close to home.
We could radically reduce unemployment
and give every laid off defense worker a good-paying job in construction
or education by embarking on a nationwide school-building plan.
Instead of gutting bilingual
education, we could teach every kid in the country to speak two
or three languages, and instead of slashing art and music, we
could begin a public school-based renaissance. And we could make
public college or technical school free for all graduating seniors,
thereby greatly expanding the number of people who see a reason
to graduate from high school and virtually eliminating student
debt.
Imagine the dramatic changes
that flooding our communities with education would bring--more
hopeful youth, less crime, a spectacular increase in scientific
interest and the arts, combating institutional racism and segregation,
and showing the world that our country values children over military
aggression.
Of course, these huge benefits
will force some to sacrifice. The corporate board members of
Halliburton and Bechtel will have to tighten their belts, and
the shareholders in Northrop Grumman would have to go without
their second summer homes.
*
* *
WHAT'S THE point of this flight
of fancy? We have grown so accustomed to the bipartisan blather
about "security" and "no child left behind"
that we can lose sight of how the system is actively robbing
us and our children.
Realizing what's at stake can
be the first step toward joining the struggle. Our country is
messed up, and tinkering around the edges is not enough. To get
the kind of changes that will actually begin to improve our lives,
it isn't enough to elect this or that Democrat to replace this
or that Republican.
To force any genuine change
in the government's priorities will require a huge social force--like
the beginnings of the one we witnessed in Los Angeles and Chicago
and other cities, when millions of immigrants and their supporters
took to the streets.
This has always been true in
American history, from the revolution against British colonialism,
to the abolitionist movement to end slavery, to the fight for
industrial unionism in the 1930s, to the civil rights and antiwar
movements in the 1960s.
But this time around, our social
movements must have their own political party or parties that
aim to help strengthen and coordinate our struggle, not co-opt
and derail it as the Democratic Party has traditionally done.
Creating that genuine party
of the people is perhaps the hardest challenge of all, but knowing
what we could do with all the wealth the working people of this
country have created should be a good enough incentive to try.
Todd Chretien is running for US Senate as a Green
Party member against Sen. Dianne Feinstein. See www.Todd4Senate.org
for more info.
Now
Available
from CounterPunch Books!
The Case
Against Israel
By Michael Neumann
CounterPunch
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