Why I've Been So Depressed Lately
As I expected, there are lots of folks who hadn't seen the budget cuts, thanks to all the newspapers and TV stations who didn't think it necessary to post it. A list without my silly comments can be found at:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/2006budget/budget06_program_cuts.html
Below is a graphic of the program. Isn't it pretty?
That's 4 BILLION dollars less for education folks! That's less than what we are spending for this war in ONE MONTH! And Bush has just asked for another $82 billion! The current price tag on the war BTW is nearly $157,000.000.00.
With that money, we could have hired 2,720,340 public school teachers for one year (or 1,360,000 teachers over two years which is how long we've been in this mess come March 19 - Happy Anniversary Iraq! :)
or... 20,791,000 kids to attend a year of Head Start
or... 93,995,350 kids to heave health insurance for one year
or... 7,609,675 (older) kids to have four-year scholarships to public universities
or... 1,413,392 new public housing units
or... 6 YEARS of fully funded global anti-hunger efforts
or... 15 YEARS of fully funded worldwide AIDS programs
or... 52 YEARS of ensured immunizations for every child in the world
source: http://costofwar.com/
The newspaper said today we've reached a total of 1,500 dead American soldiers. As usual, there was no mention of dead civilians (is there ever?). The official verified numbers of dead Iraqi civilians is a minimum of 16,123. There is no price tag for people eliminated. There isn't a number high enough to estimate the value of those wasted lives.