"Well, actually, one of the figures that we’re looking at now is that the combined total budgets of states, of the forty-eight states projected to be in deficit for 2010, is $689 billion. And when you compare that to our nation’s military budget for 2010—it’s $704 billion—it’s striking that the total state budgets, forty-eight states, is less than our nation’s military expenditures. So, for example, for Massachusetts, we are at a $27 billion budget, $5 billion of which will be in deficit, which will mean huge cuts. For the states, it’s about $160 billion for all forty-eight states to bring them to level funding for 2010." -Jo Comerford, executive director of the National Priorities Project. Her latest article is available at TomDispatch.com. It’s called, Cashing in the War Dividend: The Joys of Perpetual War, on the October 21, 2009 edition of Democracy Now.
Anyone who says Americans are "generally good people" should probably include the criticism that we are "generally rock stupid when it comes to the behavior of their government."
Our national priorities are completely upside-down.
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