Conservative Values
Conservatives love to talk about values during the election season to appeal to its value-based voters. These values supposedly revolve around supporting families and our troops, and yet they simultaneously attack any government social funding efforts aimed at helping those persons they claim to endorse.
Whether its social security, education, veterans benefits, health care, and so on, the conservative agenda is clear - there is always enough money to spend on waging oil wars around the globe even if we have to borrow most of it from Asia and the Middle East, but there is never any money to spend on social programs and infrastructure.
The budget battle currently taking place in Sacramento is another case in point. Republicans refuse to allow any increase in taxes on corporations or the wealthy, (which given the current rate of inflation is ludicrous on its face), knowing full well that the Democrats will event-ually be forced to cave in and allow further spending cuts.
This cycle of spending cuts will continue until there is practically nothing left to cut and the govern-ment itself will be unable to function – death by a thousand cuts! At that final stage, virtually everything will be privatized and everyone will have to pay user fees to access the roads, parks, and schools. Does this sound like an exaggeration? Not really, if you really understand the conservative libertarian free market agenda now dominating the Republican party.
So what do conservatives in DC love to spend money on? Here are some revealing statistics taken from a series of recent Mother Jones articles entitled "Mission Creep":
U.S military sites overseas (2007): 761 (Germany, 268; Japan, 124; S. Korea, 87.
Number of foreign countries with U.S bases: 39.
Total sites foreign and domestic: 5429.
Total Pentagon "facilities": 545,714.Estimated worldwide defense spending: $1.2 trillion.
U.S. federal defense spending: $587 billion.
Compared to federal education spending of $62 B and Social Security $5 B.Bush's FY 08 request to train and equip foreign military: $4.5 B.
Total U.S. service personnel 510,927 in 151 countries, including 196,600 in Iraq and 25,700 in Afghanistan."The purpose of our overseas bases is to maintain U.S. dominance in the world. Our empire exists so we can exploit a much greater share of the world's wealth than we are entitled to." Chalmers Johnson.
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