Free Classifieds
Letters
News
Editorials
Human Interest
Environment
Government
Education
Crime
Farm and Garden
Food & Dining
Wine
Events
Hospitality
Health
Art
Music
Real Estate
Business
Legal
Sports
Parks
Pets
----
Boonville
Elk
Fort Bragg
Gualala
Laytonville
Leggett
Mendocino
Navarro
Piercy
Point Arena
Ukiah
Willits
Mendocino County Budget vs. War Spending
All of the mismanagement of Mendocino County government and particularly its budget pales in comparison to the mismanagement of the federal budget and national economy.
There are many components to federal mismanagement, but the largest in dollar terms is "defense" spending. War spending, for the United States, is not really about defense. It is about projecting power. That is why it is so extravagantly expensive. Even without the war in Afghanistan and occupation of Iraq the United States of America would be spending far more than the rest of the world's nations on war.
Mendocino County citizens are few in number, but collectively we pay an enormous price for the military posturing of politicians, Pentagon pals, and their industrialist friends. According to CostOfWar.com, which seems to have well-researched figures, the cost of the wars against Iraq and Afghanistan (excluding all other defense spending), since 2001, total $1.015 trillion dollars.
Citizens of Mendocino County can take credit for $248 million of that. Our population is about 90,000, so that is about $2,755 per person.
$248 million dwarfs Mendocino County's present and future budget liabilities.
Most of us would probably prefer to pocket the money, if we could, since we have problems of our own. Even sadder than the waste of money is that the Federal Government did not even tax us to pay for it all. First President Bush and his Congresses, then President Obama and his Congresses, borrowed money to finance the Pentagon. They also borrowed money to bail out the Wall Street banks, the auto industry, and the highway construction industry.
Whose to blame? For the county budget mess, you can certainly blame the Board of Supervisors. For the national mess there is only one person to blame around here: Congressman Mike Thompson. Mike claims to be fiscally conservative, and he is fairly powerful as members of the House of Representatives go. No one, Democrat, Republican, Green, Libertarian, or independent has been able to raise the kind of money necessary to seriously contest Thompson's seat.
Maybe nothing can be done about him, but at least people should know who to blame for the national debt and deficit. Mike Thompson. They should know who to blame when teachers and other public workers are laid off: Mike Thompson. They should know who to blame for America's economy losing its competitive edge because our money is wasted on bright new Pentagon machines that go to Afghanistan to get blown to bits: Mike Thompson.
After World War II, factories of every industrial nation in the world had been destroyed except those in the United States. We could afford a global military establishment. Now we have to compete not just with China, Japan, and Korea, but with Europe and Russia, Brazil and Australia, Turkey and India and Malaysia. No other country is wasting a significant fraction of its economic output on military spending compared to the U.S.A.
If we want to continue spiraling towards being a second-rate nation, all we need to do is keep up the defense spending. Once our economy is small enough, we will sink into oblivion like a fully armored medieval knight sinking into a pit of quicksand.
