Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Something we all need to ponder

This top pie chart describes how the money is really spent:


The pie chart below is the government view of the budget. This is a distortion of how our income tax dollars are spent because it includes Trust Funds (e.g., Social Security), and the expenses of past military spending are not distinguished from nonmilitary spending. For a more accurate representation of how your Federal income tax dollar is really spent, see the large chart (top).



I found this information right here.

Back in the '70s when I was in graduate school I remember discussing the so-called "failures" of our public schools in a philosophy of education class. I remember making the point that somehow we managed to find enough money for the military to make it work. The professor commented wryly that we didn't know whether we could make education really work if we allocated enough money to get the job done because we had never tried.

Can you just imagine what would happen if we really did spend exactly the same money on education as we do on defense? Heck, we'd probably have a cure for cancer as soon as those students we started with entered the work force. Just imagine what we could do as a society!

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