Written by Ron Hagg   

So much talk about our huge deficit and what to do about it. Our national debt is close to $14 trillion dollars. That looks like this: $14,000,000,000,000. This is such a huge number that it is difficult to wrap our minds around it. Let me state it like this: every person in the USA owes $45,000 towards our national debt. Our children and grandchildren will certainly thank us for this. We are short attention span theater nation. When President Clinton left office we had a yearly surplus—that was only ten years ago. We have forgotten who brought us our troubles. And it wasn't the ordinary citizen—the middle and lower economic strata. No, it was and still is our inflated Defense Budget and the virtual free ride of our rich. Let's tackle the Defense Budget first.

We spend 46.5% of all military spending in the world. The rest of the world combined spends 53.5% on military expenditures.
Get ready for this—the USA is only 4.5% of world's population. As you can easily see we are way over extended—actually extended beyond belief. What do we get for this expenditure?

Our Defense Budget in 2010 was approximately $737 billion. Getting exact figures is difficult. This looks like $737,000,000,000. How does that relate to you?
This figure comes to $2,370 for every person in the USA just for only 2010. Is this seriously worth it? As example we have 74,000 troops in Germany. We have troops deployed in most every country in Europe. This deployment is supposed to defend Europe from the Soviet Union—oops no Soviet Union. Make sense? No I didn't think so. This costs multiple billions every year. There are many, many more areas in the 'defense' of our nation that are a complete waste of money and resources. Money and resources that could actually benefit 'We the People'. Why hasn't this been seriously discussed?

Another way to look at our Defense Budget: Our military is 21% of our entire budget. If non military defense items such as non-military personnel employed by the armed services, our contracted mercenaries, Intelligence (CIA as an example), Home Land Security, and other such expenditures some think we actually spend around 33% of our budget on defense.

The Congressional Budget Office estimates that appropriations for operations in Afghanistan and Iraq since 2001 through February 2008 total $752 billion. That would be approximately 4% of federal spending over the period. That comes to $2,420 for every person in the USA. And please DO remember that former (thank God—former) President Bush did NOT put these wars into the defense budget. There were special appropriations for Iraq and Afghanistan.

In our discussion let's move on to the GREED factor. First of all it is important to realize that we are often lied to either by our government or by corporations. Look no further than PB. When I was a 14 year old boy in L.A.(1962) the L.A. Times stated that the USA had the highest standard of living in the world and that California had the highest standard of living in the USA. And the topper was that L.A. had the highest standard of living in California. We were at the top of the heap. Also, I was white—thus putting me at the top of the top. That's when I realized that my chest hurt from breathing poisoned air. I discovered the lies told to us disguised as the 'truth'. We are continually manipulated with clever lies.
"Save Money Live Better."

Remember when the Soviet Union collapsed? The collapse came very, very quickly. Faster than anyone could have possibly predicted. Why did the Soviet Union collapse so fast? Simple—their economy was based on smoke and mirrors. One day corporate GREED will backfire and our economy will go down the toilet. Corporate is only interested in quarterly profits-they never plan for what is best for our society. Much of our wealth is from financial corporations making obscene profits shuttling money from one entity to another. At each step of the way they make profits. Nothing has been added to our economy—no infrastructure projects, no real aid to education—only profits for the already rich. And when we buy the products they are most likely produced over seas on the backs of oppressed people. How stupid we are-how spoiled we are to think that we can keep going in the direction we are going. So keep on buying the cheap plastic landfill crap from your local WalMart. "Save Money Live Better" that's their motto.

Greed. You may have read where a CEO made $150 million in one year. Again this is truly hard to fathom. So we all can realize how much money this is. Let's look at it this way:
At $150,000,000 this comes to $411,000 every day 365 days a year—$17,125 every hour of every day. So if one of these greedy CEO's sleeps eight hours they will have earned $126,920. Not bad. Does anything this CEO accomplishes worth this much money? I'll be bold here—of course it isn't worth this much money.
How about those earning $15,000,000 a year. $41,000 every day—$1,713 every hour of every day.
One more—the lowly millionaire: $2,736 every day—$114 every hour of every day.
Teachers are the cornerstone of our 'democracy' Let's use $50,000 a year as a salary. But do note that many teachers make much less than this.
At $50,000 a year it comes to $137 every day—$5.70 every hour of every day.
Many of us work for $25,000 a year.
At $25,000 a year it comes to $68 every day—$2.85 every hour of every day.

The top 1% of Americans (350,000) earn 24% of all monies earned. Pretty generous if you ask me that 'they” leave the rest of us 310,650,000 with 76%. We are no better than the banana republics of Central America.

Get the pitcher. It makes lots of sense to give the greedy top 1% greedy few huge tax breaks than slam the middle and lower economic strata. How about taxes—this must be the great equalizer? All of these huge income earners pay very little taxes thanks to our tax codes. And how did these tax codes get written? Corporate lobbyists and corporate shills in our government. Let's say that a corporation gave $100,000 to a Congress person well of course the person in Congress will help them out. Many of these rich and super rich pay no taxes at all. On average the middle class pays a larger percentage in taxes than the rich and super rich. Warren Buffett, billionaire, pays a total tax rate (federal, state & local) of
0.2% of his income and investment gains. A typical single person earning a minimum wage pays taxes amounting to 22% of her wages, a 100-fold higher rate than Mr. Buffett’s.

Here's a good question for you. The Republicans say that the we need to give these huge tax breaks for the rich and super rich so that they can create jobs. Well, they have been getting these tax breaks for ten years and we are still in one hell of a mess with about 25% unemployed or underemployed. Does the Republican have a logical sense to it? No it doesn't, because if it did make sense then there would be the jobs out there right now and everything would be good.

Want to lower our deficit? I think you can see where this might happen without driving our nation into third world status. Scary—it could very well happen unless we wake up—pay attention—take charge of our country. We are living in a “corpocracy” For those of you not familiar with this term it means that corporations and government for all intense and purposes are the same. Corporations—government—government—corporations.

I have given a few things to think about. The direction of our country is in our hands—if only we knew this. Don't give up—don't believe the lies—fight the good fight—don't capitulate.