redblueamerica.com

Nobody likes paying taxes.

I know I’m not going to get much of an argument on that one.

But paying taxes that fund a George Bush budget… it’s just too painful for words.

The same week I sent in my 1040 I had a chance to read a report from The National Priorities Project called: Where Do Your Tax Dollars Go?

This may be the most depressing thing I’ve read since The Bell Jar.

According to the report, here’s how each tax dollar is spent:

* A Staggering 42.2 cents (nearly half) went to the military.

          -Of that only 3.5 cents went to veterans.

          - Of that, 10 cents (ten percent of your tax dollars) went to paying off the debt we’ve incurred just on military spending

* Twenty-two cents went to health care

* 10.2 cents went to the non-military debt (remember the days of the Clinton surplus? Seems so long ago)

* Anti-poverty programs got 8.7 cents

* Education received just 4.4 cents

* Government and law enforcement received 3.9 cents

* Housing and Community Development got 3.3 cents

* Environment, energy and science garnered 2.4 cents

* Agriculture, commerce and transportation received 1.5 cents

* International affairs 1 cent

If this isn’t an indictment of the Bush presidency (and the ineffectual Congress), what is?

Think about it. Our combined spending on science, education, housing, transportation and agriculture is less than one fourth of what we spend on the military.

As we spread the George Bush version of democracy to Iraq, our democratic institutions at home are threatened by our failure to provide basic needs to our citizens. As Bush keeps fighting for a better tomorrow in Iraq, our American tomorrows are looking bleaker and bleaker.

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