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In the US, there is a saying that "two things are only certain in life: Death and Taxes".
Tax deadline in the US is traditionally on April 15, however, this year it was extended to April 17th because April 15th was a Sunday and Monday is public holidays.
Anyway, here are relevant facts and figures for US taxpayers:
- Percentage of US discretionary budget spent on education and other social services: 8%
- Percentage of US discretionary budget spent for military: 57% (but the wars on Iraq and Afghanistan are funded in supplementary budget requests so must be add to that!)
- US Military Budget as a percent of World total military expenditures: 49%
- Number of Americans classified as "food insecure" in 2004: 38 million
- Number of Americans without health insurance: 45 million
- Total direct aid to Israel 1948-2006: $255 billion
- Total Cost of US Support for Israel: $1.688 trillion (not counting money and lives lost in Israel propelled wars like Iraq, not counting loss of $trillions in business with the rest of the world because of US support for Israel etc)
- Federal aid for each resident in Louisiana in 2002 (from their taxes): $1,500
- Direct U.S. aid for each Israeli citizen in 2003 (per capita income in Israel-$16,710; they do not pay taxes to the US): $581
- Direct U.S. aid for each Ethiopian citizen in 2004 (per capita income in Ethiopia - $110): $2.50
- Percentage of U.S. foreign aid that goes to Israel: 27%
- Population of Israel as percentage of total world population: 0.1%
- Number of Palestinian minors killed by Israeli security forces (2000-2007): 814
- Total number of Palestinians injured or killed (September 2000-April 2007): 31,296
- Number of bullets fired by Israeli security forces in the first week of the second Intifada: 1,300,000
- Number of unexploded Israeli bombs strewn across South Lebanon after the 2006 war: 1,000,000 or 1.4 per resident
If you need more info on how your government spent your taxes, check out this:
http://nationalpriorities.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=286&Itemid=61
Action: Tell Your Rep. TODAY: No More Money for Bush's War!
[Source: Mazin Qumsiyeh, Image by Ben Heine]
{ 5 } Comments
Two simple questions, which are not my own: (Q1) If Israel disarmed tomorrow, what would happen? (Q2) If the Palestinians disarmed tomorrow, what would happen?
(A1): There would be no Israel, with countless slaughtered.
(A2): There would be peace in the middle east - at least with respect to Palestinians.
man! you reminded me that I have to send the forms tomorrow
… shoot! I cannot believe that I will pay more than $1000 for "Israel"!… It sucks!
Sanity,
You not only mislead by fails questions, but also assume that your predicting in the future tense are facts.
First of all, there is no comparison between Israel arms and Palestinians. Unless you weight the Palestinian bullet to merkava tank, then that is something else.
Second, you mislead by suggesting that Palestinians actually have weapons of mass destruction to 'slaughter' the Israeli, but they don't. On the opposite side, Israel has all kind of WMD's.
Third, you assume as a fact that Israelis are in danger, whereas facts on ground tells something else, both are in danger. However, Palestinians are more vulnerable because they don't have enough weapons to protect themselves.
Fourth, you assume that war and WMD is a must have for Israel, but not others. I don't see why except reading between the lines that you are a racist warmonger like million's Zionists and their supporter.
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If Louisiana and Ethiopia did medical R&D they'd get more federal money.
Honestly, I'm not an American citizen but if I had a choice of sending my tax money to
A) people who have an interest in science and have nothing against me personally
B) people who would just as soon rob me at knifepoint as look at me, if I set foot on their turf
I would choose A.
Why should we subsidize nonproductive people over productive people? Can you explain it to me?
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