------------------------- Via Workers World News Service Reprinted from the April 3, 2003 issue of Workers World newspaper -------------------------
WAR COSTS RISE AS RICH GET TAX CUTS
By Heather Cottin
While people were watching the images of bombs and tanks in swirling sandstorms, the Bush administration on March 24 requested an additional $75 billion from Congress for "emergency spending" for the war on Iraq. And that's only for the first month of war.
This is in addition to the $400 billion already voted for military spending for 2003, covering the budgets of the Defense Department and the Energy Depart ment's nuclear weapons program. All those pundits who vowed that this war would cost only $50 billion are silent. And the $75 billion is only "the first installment," according to Rep. David Obey.
So who will pay for this war? The total military budget so far this year- -$475 billion--breaks down to an average of over $1,500 per person for everyone in this country, or more than $6,000 for a family of four. Workers are being told they must pay with their taxes, and the young must pay with their lives. Because of growing unemployment, young people facing poverty and a miserable job market become cannon fodder. So poor youth will die liberating oil wells for Exxon-Mobil and Halliburton.
At the same time, the Senate and House are working on a tax bill to hand over at least $350 billion in immediate tax cuts that would benefit mostly the wealthiest people in the U.S. In a move even Bill Gates of Microsoft found surprising, the Senate voted for an amendment to the budget bill that would repeal the estate tax, thereby putting more of the financial burden on the backs of the working class.
U.S. tax legislation is fleecing workers so rapidly that it is difficult to keep up. The windfall 2001 tax cut will efficiently rob the workers of $2 trillion over 10 years, while the stock dividend tax breaks in 2002 saved the ruling class another $1.6 trillion, according to the AFL- CIO web site.
Appropriating money for war is not simply a matter of paying the troops. They get a very small portion of the war bucks. The military industries get the lion's share. While Washington claims that the U.S. will help the people of Iraq, there's only $543 million in humanitarian aid in the appropriations bill. Out of $75 billion, only $1.7 billion is allocated to rebuild a modern country that is being shattered before our eyes. That's the cost of one B-2 bomber.
Who gets the rest of the money? The "defense" contractors. They get money for weapons such as Boeing's Mark-84 JDAM, a $10,000 bomb that gouges a 20-foot crater and hurls up 10,000 pounds of rock and dirt debris at supersonic speed. The U.S. has stockpiled thousands of JDAMs at Persian Gulf air bases.
Billions go to Raytheon for Tomahawk and cruise missiles, to Lockheed Martin for the PAC-3 missile, to Boeing for Apache helicopters. The money goes for giant Daisy Cutter bombs, bunker busters, depleted uranium tank blasters. It goes to General Motors for tanks, to Kellogg Brown & Root and Halliburton for military installations in the Gulf region.
As the states face monster cutbacks in social services and unemployment grows, workers everywhere are becoming aware of the human and financial costs of this war. They can stop the war machine when they realize that a desert quagmire in Iraq is not in the interests of anyone except Big Oil and the military-industrial complex. n
- END -
(Copyright Workers World Service: Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but changing it is not allowed. For more information contact Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe wwnews- [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] Support the voice of resistance http://www.workers.org/orders/donate.php)
------------------ This message is sent to you by Workers World News Service. To subscribe, E-mail to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, E-mail to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To switch to the DIGEST mode, E-mail to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Send administrative queries to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
