Neve Gordon teaches politics at Ben-Gurion University, Israel, and can be reached at ngordon@bgumail.bgu.ac.
Let's look at the facts. In order to fund his wars, Bush is insisting on a $48 billion increase to the current $335 billion military budget, thus designating 53 percent of government spending on the military budget, which is already over twenty-three times the combined military spending of countries identified by the Pentagon as likely adversaries: Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Sudan and Syria.
Meanwhile, only 9 percent of the budget will go towards education and social services, and 6 percent to health. All this at a time when almost 17 percent of children in the U.S. live in poverty, 44 million people have no health insurance, and 85 percent of public schools need repair. Incidentally, the cost of one B-2 Bomber would be enough to repair over 1,000 aging school buildings.
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Last modified: Tue Oct 1 21:25:39 CDT 2002