What Are Our Priorities?

President George W. Bush has asked Congress to approve $87 BILLION for reconstruction and ongoing occupation of Iraq. That’s a pretty good return on a $670,000 campaign contribution made to the Republican Party by Bechtel and Halliburton. You will recall these are the two corporations that were awarded over $1.7 BILLION in no-bid contracts to rebuild Iraq. Interestingly, Vice President Dick Cheney is the former CEO of Halliburton. With $1.7 billion already approved, it makes you wonder what we could do in our own country if we found $87 billion lying around. Newsweek published some factual data on how that money could be used to benefit our own citizens.

HOMELAND SECURITY

For $87 billion you could:

• More than double the Department of Homeland Security’s 2004 budget, or
• Spend 22 times what Congress appropriated to cities and states in aide to first responders this year, or
• Spend almost 15 times what President Bush has proposed for bio-terrorism preparedness funding nationwide.

EDUCATION

For $87 billion you could:

• Hire more than 2 million new teachers, or
• Spend an additional $1,824 on each child in American public schools, or
• Spend seven times more than the President’s proposal for Title 1 education programs in fiscal year 2004.

HEALTH CARE

For $87 billion you could:

• Triple the 2004 budget for the National Institutes of Health, or
• Spend 58 times the proposed federal funding for community health centers in 2004, or
• Spend $7,909 on each American child without health insurance.

POLICE / FIRE SAFETY

For $87 billion you could:

• Hire more than 2 million new police officers nationwide, or
• Hire more than 2 million new firefighters.

AFGHANISTAN

For $87 billion you could:

• Spend 87 times what has so far been promised in American aid to rebuild Afghanistan, or
• Spend $5.4 million on each of the 16,000 Afghan women who die in childbirth each year, or
• Spend $26.9 million for each square mile of the Kunar region where many believe Osama bin Laden is hiding out.

IMMIGRATION

For $87 billion you could:

• Spend 233 times the current budget for border security, or
• Spend $16.4 million on each mile of shared border with Canada and Mexico, or
• Spend $26,363 on every immigrant who arrived in the United States between 2000 and 2002.

THE ENVIRONMENT

For $87 billion you could:

• Increase the EPA’s budget more than tenfold, or
• Spend 58 times more than what the president has proposed for research on hydrogen-powered cars

AIDS

For $87 billion you could:

• Spend 27 times more on AIDS research than the federal government spent in fiscal year 2000, or
• Spend $226,029 on each individual AIDS patient in the United States, or
• Fulfill the president’s promise of $3 billion in funding for AIDS in Africa this year and have enough left over to make a similar commitment for 28 years to come.

All this, and there is no end to our occupation in sight. The shortsightedness of this administration is more than deplorable. It borders on criminal.

Mr. President, it is time to repair a broken health care delivery system in the United States where over 40 million Americans are now uninsured and another 37 million underinsured. It is time to provide a meaningful drug benefit for Medicare recipients without devastating retirees who enjoy hard fought bargained for benefits by eliminating corporation’s responsibilities to them.

It is time to rebuild the public education system in this country, not destroy the concept of public education by privatizing it to for profit charter schools. It’s time to insure the solvency of Social Security, not rob the surpluses to rebuild countries we spent billions to destroy.

It’s time to reverse the loss of high paying industrial and technical jobs, and end the administrations support of exporting jobs and sponsorship of "Job Fairs" to allow other countries to pitch there severely underpaid labor forces to U.S. companies.

It’s time to be aware of the freedoms we pretend to be fighting to preserve, not destroying them with a so-called "Patriot Act" that squashes civil and human rights. It’s time to stop hiding behind lies such as holding hundreds of men women and children of middle eastern descent for years with no trials no, no convictions, no proof and doing it all in Cuba because it would be illegal if it happened in this country.

It’s time to protect the natural wonders we still possess, not open the artic wildlife refuge to oil drilling to benefit cronies in the oil industry. It’s time to fix the economy, reverse the tax giveaway to millionaires so the common working taxpayer does have to pay interest on the money you had to borrow to reward the rich. It’s time to turn the trillion dollar deficits we are experiencing back into the trillion dollar surpluses that existed a mere three years ago when you became president.

It’s time to strengthen the Clean Air Act, not disable it with your proposal to exempt older coal fired power plants from having to install anti-pollution equipment. It’s time to join the rest of the world and sign the Kyoto protocols. It’s time to admit, that under your watch, the median household income in this country suffered the first significant decline since 1991 (wonder who was president then?).

Most people can’t fathom how much a trillion is. As a point of reference, if we would have saved $1 MILLION a day, since the birth of Christ, we still would not have saved $1 TRILLION.

Mr. President, your country needs help. Look out across our country from sea to shining sea. We could really use that $87 billion and some rational thought in Washington.

In Solidarity,
Ron Honse

The quoted material is reprinted from Newsweek.

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