[Peace-discuss] Joe Bauers letter

[David Green]

A great letter yesterday from Joe Bauers, a retired high school English
teacher:

Letter to the Editor | Tax dollars going to wrong places
Tue, 05/07/2019 - 3:35am | The News-Gazette
<http://www.news-gazette.com/users/digitalmedia>

As another tax season has passed, it might be good to see where our tax
dollars have gone.

We can start with the things they did not buy us. Our crumbling
infrastructure has been cited by a host of politicians, most of whom do
nothing about it. A drive down our streets and roads pockmarked by gaping
holes proves the point.

Then there's the matter of health care. Ours is the most expensive on the
planet, yet with outcomes that are less than exemplary. Private, for-profit
insurance and unchecked pharmaceutical greed lead the rocket ride of
soaring costs.

If we manage to live to 65, we might partake of America's most popular
health insurance, Medicare. Until then, millions of our citizens will be
uninsured or under-insured.

What about education? School districts have to scrounge to stay afloat, and
our college students are faced with a lifetime of debt, which delights the
bankers.

Speaking of them — remember the 2008 financial cataclysm? Our tax dollars
went to bail them out, not to reform them. The Obama Justice Department did
not think it prudent to prosecute the criminal bankers.

So, if not for these things, then for what? The answer is simple: War. We
subsidize a monstrous "defense" industry with our tax dollars. We annually
spend around $700 billion-plus, far and away more than the next several
nations combined, in endless wars here, there and everywhere.

Where our money goes — or doesn't go — tells a lot about our national
character.

JOSEPH BAUERS

Champaign
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