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CHINA'S GREAT LEAP BACKWARDS
Peter Kwong
gives us the "New China" without illusions: from the
"millionaires' fair" in Shanghai, with $60,000 diamond-studded dog leashes
to one
of the most savagely repressed working class and peasantry on
the planet. How China's
leaders swapped Marx and Mao for Milton Friedman. Alexander Cockburn
on What's wrong with the U.S. left.
They're sitting in darkened rooms weaving conspiracy fantasies
about 9/11; they're blogging; they're confusing a medium with
a movement; they're not doing enough to stop the war in Iraq.
John Ross
takes us along the stormy trail of the Mexican election. CounterPunch Online is read by millions of viewers
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We are spending $8 billion a month in
Iraq. that equates to 2 billion dollars a week, or 267 million
dollars a day, or 11 million dollars an hour.
Attached are some comparisons
between what we are spending in Iraq as we "stay the course"
indefinitely and what those funds could be used for instead.
I've been fighting for our
military to get out of Iraq because I'm concerned about the loss
of our troops and the future of our military and also because
I believe they have accomplished their mission there and the
Iraqis must resolve their internal conflict themselves. However,
I also wanted to demonstrate what these expenses mean to domestic
policy in the United States and give you an idea of just some
of the things that what we could accomplish with this amount
of money.
NATIONAL SECURITY
$33.1 billion/yr Department
of Homeland Security FY 07 budget (4 months in Iraq)
$10 billion (1-time) Equipping
commercial airliners with defenses against shoulder fired missiles
(5 weeks in Iraq)
$8.6 billion/7 years Shortage
of international aid needed to rebuild Afghanistan (one month
in Iraq)
$5.2 billion (1-time) estimated
need for capital improvements to secure public transportation
system (trains, subways, buses)
(3 weeks in Iraq)
$1.5 billion/year Radiation
detectors needed at all US ports (rejected due to cost) (5 days
in Iraq)
$1.4 billion/ year Double
the COPS (community police grants) program (5 days in Iraq)
$800 million/year public transportation
personnel training and technical support (72 hours in Iraq)
$700 million/year 100% screening
of all air cargo - rejected because of (2 days in Iraq) cost
(1/4 of domestic shipping and 1/2 of international shipping is
done on passenger planes)
$350 million (1-time) Make
emergency radio systems interoperable (1.2 days in Iraq) (recommended
after 9/11 but hasn't happened yet)
$500 million/year Double the
firefighters grant program (2 days in Iraq)
$94 million/year Restore cuts
to cities hit on 9/11 in Homeland Security budget (8-1/2 hours
in Iraq)
HEALTH CARE/VETERANS
$36 billion/5 years reduction
for Medicare spending in President's FY 07 budget (4-1/2 months
in Iraq)
$5 billion/5 years Cut in
Medicaid in President's FY 2007 budget (2-1/2 weeks in Iraq)
$2.5 billion/5 years VA health
care premium increases in this year's budget. Premiums will double
and triple and drug co-payments will increase, costing our military
retirees $2.4 billion over 5 years (9 days in Iraq)
$100 million Additional funding
recommended for mental health research for Veterans (9 hours
in Iraq)
$48 million Medical and prosthetic
research for Veterans (half a day in Iraq)
$65 million/yr National Institutes
of Health research funding cuts in this year's budget (scientists
are leaving the field of health research because funding has
been cut so severely) (6 hours in Iraq)
$15 billion/yr Provide health
insurance to 9 million children with no health insurance (1-1/2
weeks in Iraq)
$118 million/yr The Commodity
Supplemental Food Program, which provides nutritional food packages
for less than $20 a month to more than 400,000 elderly people
- eliminated in the President's budget (12 hours in Iraq)
EDUCATION
$3.4 billion/yr Cut in education
budget in President's FY 07 budget from FY 06 funding level (over
40 programs including drug-free schools, federal support for
the arts,technology and parent-resource centers). (13 days in
Iraq)
$664 million/yr Perkins Loan
program cut in President's FY 07 budget (would help 463,000 low-income
students attend college) (2-1/2 days in Iraq)
$99 million/yr Even Start
(eliminated in President's budget) (9 hours in Iraq)
ENVIRONMENT/INFRASTRUCTURE
$300 million President's cut
to EPA budget in FY 2007 (1 day, 3 hours in Iraq)
$253 billion/30 years Clean
up contaminated sites in US (Up to 350,000 contaminated sites
will require cleanup over the next 30 years according to a report
released by the EPA.) (2 years in Iraq)
$9.11 billion National Park
Service maintenance backlog (1 month, 10 days in Iraq)
$6 billion Forest Service
maintenance backlog (3 weeks in Iraq)
$2 billion Fish and Wildlife
Service maintenance backlog (2 weeks in Iraq)
$47.2 billion/yr Miscellaneous
user fees throughout government imposed by President's budget
on taxpayers (6 months in Iraq)
$1.7 billion/yr Grants to
states cut in 2007 budget (1 week in Iraq)
$15 million/yr Double the
Save America's Treasures program (cut in half from last year's
budget) (1.3 hours in Iraq)
DEFENSE
$6 billion Double the number
of Navy ships we are buying in the 2007 bill from 6 ships to
12. (3 weeks in Iraq)
$8 billion Double the number
of total Air Force aircraft we are buying in this bill. That's
right ? we could double the number of F-22s, Joint Strike Fighters,
C-130's, Global Hawks and Predators we are buying. Or, we could
double the number of Navy and Marine Corps aircraft we are buying
F-18s, V-22s, KC-130Js, and so on. (1 month in Iraq)
Rep. John P. Murtha is a member of Congress from Pennsylvania.
Now
Available
from CounterPunch Books!
The Case
Against Israel
By Michael Neumann
CounterPunch
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