Actually, I was referring to the three homeless guys who threatened me at the Bank of America ATM next to CVS on Dupont Circle Sunday night.
There has been a series of articles about this very topic in The Washington Post. I don’t disagree with your points on corporate welfare or the misuse of government funds, but don’t at least some of the homeless bear the responsibility for their condition? They are not all helpless victims.
goboy said;
This is robbery, not homelessness. If someone robs you they should be reported to the cops, and prosecuted.
Peace,
mangeorge
yeah if they are robbing people they probably arnt homeless.
I would have to dissagree though about military spending. As it has actually decreased recently.
Asmo, have I got a website for you. Here are a few choice morsels from a website you can find at http://www.sensiblepriorities.org/blsp/home_flash_yes.htm
From their Annual Report:
“The FY 2001 defense budget, presented to the Congress in January, 2000, by the outgoing Clinton Administration calls for spending $305 billion. Even if one controls for inflation, this is more than 90 percent of what we spent on average during the Cold War, more than all of our adversaries or potential adversaries combined, and more than this nation spent at the end of the administrations of such Cold War presidents as Eisenhower, Nixon, Ford and Carter.”
“…For FY 2001, the Congress has passed a budget resolution that will give the Pentagon 51.3 percent of the total discretionary budget. (That part of the budget that the President and Congress actually control each year.)…In the Fall of 1997, when the President and Congress agreed on a three year program to balance the budget, the Pentagon was allocated $895 billion over the FY 2000-2002 period. Yet in these last three fiscal years spending for the Pentagon is projected to be at least $915 billion, $20 billion more than the Congress and the President felt they should spend on defense in order to keep the budget in balance. If the Administration and Congress remain committed to staying within the agreed balanced budget guidelines, these
defense additions will necessarily mean substantially less money for education, environmental protection, health research and international aid.”
The Report goes on to provide detailed suggestions on how to reduce the Pentagon’s budget and then gives a list of “Defensive Budget Myths.” Myth #2, Asmo, is devoted to contextualizing your point: that defense spending has declined. Their analysis concludes with this statement:
“Today the U.S. spends nearly three times as much on defense as all its potential enemies combined. The total combined defense expenditures in 1999 of the rogue states that the Pentagon worries about, i.e. Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Cuba and Syria was $13.8 billion, or about four percent of the U.S. defense budget. The U.S. and its allies account for 65 percent of the world’s total military expenditures.”
My favorite part of this website is that, while you visit it, it tracks how much money the Pentagon spends since you’ve arrived. In the time it took me to post these excerpts the amount was $14,000,000.
Anyone for providing some of that money in the form of grants to states so that local governments can implementing Goboy’s homeless agenda?