>From sports and parks to more and better busses and routes; from light rail to >more HPVs and for PRT R&D; from local, clean, renewable energy to more local >farming; we have a better option for funding than the regressive sales tax or >bizarre reliance on casinos.
We can create local projects with living-wage jobs and with "premium" scientific and engineering jobs as well. We will need coordination and cooperation between local, state, and national politicians. That may be the tough part, but it can be done. >From what I understand, the F/A-22 jet costs about $250 million each, >including R&D. The air force has spent $40 billion or so on the >aircraft....so far. The war in Iraq has cost $186,257,180,xxx and rising -- at about 2 thousand dollars per second. The military has a huge overt budget and a huge covert budget as well. Our nation is ruled by the industrial-military complex so that regional and local economies are starving and are prevented from preparing responsibly for a peaceful, sustainable future. We need not ask for the whole pie at once, of course. But you know where I am going by now. Our local leaders need to persuade our representative to the DC to introduce legislation to defer funding for a few military projects while we take care of business at home. I figure that we will need to defer two F/A-22 aircraft per year for 5 years. In addition, we need to cut funding for development of nuclear weapons and divert that money to development of peaceful transportation alternatives. We need to pull our troops out of Iraq -- a huge savings for us and for the Iraqis as well. Their biggest problem will be solved, and so will one of ours. We can then divert the funding to development of peaceful transportation and localized organic farming. Reducing the dependence of both on petroleum will eliminate the need for military expenditures for oil. We can also export the newly developed technologies. This will provide local jobs and will also build bridges instead of barriers between us and people around the world. The bigger benefits to environment and to our trade deficit and such will be icing on the cake. I figure that Minneapolis and Hennepin county don't want to be greedy. We can budget may 4 or 5 billion dollars a year of sustainable urban infrastructure development for the next 20 years, and just ask the military to reduce spending by that much. No new taxes! Local jobs! Economic development! Sustainable infrastructure! Reduced local and global pollution! Energy independence! Greater national security! Reduced local and global political tensions! Shared prosperity and world peace! More cool new transportation toys than one can ride in a day! A shiny new HPV in every garage! Who could ask for more? -- pedaling for peace and ecojustice from Lynnhurst -- Gary Hoover REMINDERS: 1. Be civil! Please read the NEW RULES at http://www.e-democracy.org/rules. If you think a member is in violation, contact the list manager at [EMAIL PROTECTED] before continuing it on the list. 2. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait. For state and national discussions see: http://e-democracy.org/discuss.html For external forums, see: http://e-democracy.org/mninteract ________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A Civil City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[email protected] Subscribe, Un-subscribe, etc. at: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
