Interesting article from AlterNet.com that compares U.S. expenditures to European expenditures.
The U.S. spending supports a vast military industrial complex with Military spending being by far the largest part of the budget. European countries focus on spending money on health care, education, transportation and improving the quality of life for its citizens.
Remember, one of the reasons the USSR collapsed was pouring too large a portion of their budget into “defense” or military spending. Are we back in the USSR?
I much prefer the European model. Let’s spend our tax money making the U.S. the most modern country on earth with the highest quality of life for its citizens.
Russia still hasn’t recovered from the collapse of the USSR.
Have we in the USA learned anything from it?
For their tax dollars –or euros — they get universal health care, deeply subsidized education (including free university tuition in many countries), modern infrastructure, good mass transit and far less poverty than we have here at home. That may help explain why we have Tea Partiers screaming for cuts while Europe is ablaze with riots against its own “austerity” measures.
And while we outspend everyone on our military, among the 20 most developed countries in the world, the United States is now dead last in life expectancy at birth but leads the pack in infant mortality—40 percent higher than the runner-up. We also lead in the percentage of the population who will die before reaching age 60. Half of our kids need food stamps at some point during their childhoods. There’s certainly a modest difference in priorities dividing the Atlantic, but common sense suggests that we’re the ones who have it all wrong.
Lost in the 21st Century 