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this is a video response to dorm room politics i'll try to make it as concise
as possible
they made a video wasteful spending
i'll refer you to be on a couple years ago cutting the deficit for dummies for
more specifics on this
but i did bring up ten million dollars here hyundai six thousand dollars
they're they're talking about pork projects
which are
pieces of bills he used as a bargaining chip to get other congressmen on board
to vote for it
so any politician it speaks as if they're going to take
they're paying lip service because they all secretly love that
but the real world
is welfare in the budget
no no not that kind of welfare public art books for people to survive
corporate welfare
all right so even if we use the mls rigid definition of corporate welfare so
government literally just cutting the check to big business
using two thousand six as an example the government spent ninety six billion on
that verses just fifty nine billion on food stamps
and housing assistance which is actual welfare or social welfare
but even that ninety six billion dollar figures misleading in reality real
wasteful spending in this realm is closer to two trillion dollars
questionnaire also
all of these special breaks in government dollars corporations get are
lobbied for by throwing campaign contributions in special parks at our
congressmen
it's essentially open legal bribery because the supreme court ruled
that money equals free speech so we shouldn't be surprised their
representatives are willing to grant
favors to these people that you've been hundreds of thousands of dollars
and in many cases even millions of dollars
so he's just a couple of examples of how we could save some money again i could
go on all day but all trying to keep it short
if we end big boiling began subsidies nazis eighty billion dollars
ice should note that the government
gives these breaks under the guise of
well he's companies needed for research and development
as if being one of the most profitable industries in the world and making
almost eight hundred and fifty five
billion dollars
in profit
this past decade isn't enough of an incentive
to do their own research and development
uh... we should call it
subsidies to agribusiness
that would save
fifty two billion dollars
part of this is that small family farms are disappearing while big corporate
farms getting richer off the government tick
we should permit
the government to negotiate drug prices for medicare that would save about a
hundred and fifty seven billion dollars
part of george bush is medicare part d was a clause that was bought off by the
prescription drug companies that said
whatever price we tell you that the pet
so they overcharged the american taxpayer known there would be no
repercussions for it
we should and
tax evasion via offshoring
that would save us a hundred billion dollars a year
the example i always go back to you
is because of all the tax loopholes and deductions for the will to do
mit romney p thirteen point nine percent in federal income tax on twenty seven
million dollars wall family of four
on sixty thousand dollars a year
paid more as a percentage that's a regressive tax system
that's unheard of anna modernized industrial country
i haven't even mentions the wasteful spending of the bank bailouts under both
bush and obama where they gave billions of tax dollars with no strings attached
and c_e_o_'s who render companies into the ground turned around and poor new
private jackson dot bonuses
but most importantly in the most egregious ridiculous example of wasteful
spending
is of course the military budget
now it's almost become washington told not to suggest we should never ever ever
ever cut the military budget
politicians get afraid of attacks waged by the opposition party or charlatans
claiming how do you recommend that you're selling patriotic
i won't even take the time
to dismantle that notion because i think
just on face value it can be dismissed as moronic
it suggests that peace is not preferable to warren implies that
of the hundreds of billions of dollars we spend requires no justification
or argument in favor
so let me give you some numbers because stay speak for themselves
the u_s_ spend six hundred ninety five point seven billion dollars in the
military
that's bigger than the next fourteen more just militaries in the world
combined
we have nine hundred basis in one hundred thirty countries
when all said and done with our most recent wars experts estimate that it
will cost us four trillion dollars in total
estimates it in iraq war alone people three trillion dollars
today we spend two billion dollars a week in afghanistan
at the peak of the war
which we've been for eleven years i've even seen report suggesting we spend as
much as two billion dollars a day
palestinians dot is a lot of black
well again
it can all be described in the context of open corruption
this is an partly as conspiratorial as it sounds even republican president
dwight eisenhower in his farewell address to the nation one of what he
called the military industrial complex
which is the fancy term for describing how war as a business
in the sense that the government through tax dollars can spend and spends for war
purposes and boost the economy
and it's even worse now because the privatized we used to be government
functions in war
like the infamous *** cheney halliburton scandal
cheney was
affiliated with ch halliburton in kellogg brown and root
and they got billions of dollars in no-bid contracts from the government
and just get a couple of examples they charge forty five dollars to the
taxpayer if a soldier in iraq a six-pack of coke cola
h_r_ two hundred dollars to the taxpayer
to wash it three dollar load of laundry
so just to reiterate wrap this up real fast
we can't have a serious discussion about cutting wasteful spending
unless you bring up the elephants in the room
corporate welfare and military spending