Public Budgets

If U.S. Military Spending Returned to 2001 Level

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The House of Representatives has headed out of town to memorialize wars without managing to achieve agreement with the Senate on reauthorizing some of the most abusive “temporary” measures of the PATRIOT Act. Three cheers for Congressional vacations!

What if not just our civil liberties but our budget got a little bit of 2001 back?

In 2001, U.S. military spending was $397 billion, from which it soared to a peak of $720 billion in 2010, and is now at $610 billion in 2015. These figures read more

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The 16 Core Progressive Policies, Really?

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Salvatore Babones’ proposals in Sixteen for ’16: A Progressive Agenda for a Better America are not bad, assuming a progressive agenda can limit itself to one nation.

But these sorts of proposals tend to be — and this one is no exception — smart, compassionate takes on the topics that are in the corporate media. The topics that aren’t already on your television also aren’t in this book or others like it.

What should the U.S. public budget be? Is nearly double the read more

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Free College or Another New War?

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Noting that U.S. college costs have gone up 500% since 1985, the Washington Post recommends seven countries where U.S. students can go to college for free without bothering to learn the language of the natives or anything so primitive.

These are nations with less wealth than the United States has, but which make college free or nearly free, both for citizens and for dangerous illegals visiting their Homelands.

How do they do it?

Three of them have a higher top tax read more

Free College or Another New War? Read More »

Peace Work Because of You

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A note from David Swanson:

You may have seen this article I wrote recently on ongoing U.S. use of depleted uranium weapons. It’s on dozens of websites, including my own WarIsACrime, but also Al Jazeera, Truthout, Counterpunch, FireDogLake, OpEdNews, Washington’s Blog, Z, and many others.

Guess what I got paid, in total, from all of those outlets? —–>>>

But I can pay the bills and keep working for peace if you help read more

Peace Work Because of You Read More »

Now Two States Pursue Truly Affordable Education

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Maryland may soon join Oregon in exploring solutions to the crisis of student debt and unaffordable education.

Education is supposed to be a human right.  But the United States puts people into deep debt to pay for it.  Short of taxing billionaires or dismantling bombers (both of which we’re all, I hope, working on), what’s the solution?

The state of Oregon has passed a law creating a commission to study a plan called “Pay it forward. Pay it back.”  See read more

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Sequester Optionally Applied Only to Good Things

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Spending cuts have been applied by Congress to both military and non-military spending. 

In my view, the military cuts are much too small and the non-military cuts should not exist at all.  In the view of most liberal organizations, the military cuts — like the military spending and the military itself — are to be ignored, while the non-military cuts are to be opposed by opposing all cuts in general. 

But, guess what? 

The spending limits on the military are being read more

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Talk Nation Radio: Highway Boondoggles Bypass Budget Crunch

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Randy “Salz” Salzman is a transportation writer and researcher and the author of Fatal Attraction: Curbing Our Love Affair With the Automobile Before it Kills Us.  He discusses how highway construction boondoggles that are bad for health, heritage, the environment, and even the flow of traffic, have survived in these times of cramped public budgets.  read more

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Talk Nation Radio: Pentagon Professor Says the U.S. Military Overpowers Civilian Rule and Should Be Demilitarized

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Gregory D. Foster is Professor of Political Science at the Industrial College of the Armed Forces, National Defense University, Washington, D.C., where he previously has served as George C. Marshall Professor and J. Carlton Ward Distinguished Professor and Director of Research. Foster says the United States no longer has civilian control of the military, and that the military should read more

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