Military Spending vs. Public Education

The Lockheed F-35 multi-strike fighter is A Weapon That Costs More Than Australia.

The US intends to buy 2,443 Lockheed F-35s. The tab will be a cool trillion dollars.

That's one shit-grip full of duckets.

$1,000,000,000,000

One trillion is 13 digits -- a 1 followed by 12 zeros. GAO estimates that the F-35 program will cost US taxpayers $1E12 to purchase, operate, & maintain.

Australia's entire 12-digit GDP is $924 billion.

The culture of endless money that has taken hold must be replaced by a culture of restraint.
~ U.S. Defense Secretary, Robert Gates

Nary a peep from our elected officials on yet another military blank-check boondoggle.

Are there higher priorities, like a WPA-like jobs program or re-investing in public education?


Try This With That $1 Trillion

About 6 million of the best & brightest teachers would be needed if the US chose to publicly educate all of our 60 million children, aged 0-14, with a 10:1 student to teacher ratio.

In this thought experiment, we could choose to pay the best and the brightest 6 million teachers an attractive salary of say, $100,000 per year.

Sound ambitious? Sound crazy?

If we dumped the F-35 program, we could have the opportunity to re-build a world-class public school system -- and still have $166,666 in change.

Just sayin'.

Destructive vs Constructive Spending

I want the US Federal government to spend your hard-earned tax dollars.

Yes, I want the US government to spend your hard-earned tax dollars on essential shit you actually need, like an education or a job.

What if the US Federal government provided equal access to higher education? What would it cost and where would we get the money?

Military Spending for $1,086 billion, Alex.

Cumulative funds appropriated by the US Congress from the 9/11 attacks through the regular FY2010 for US Department of Defense, US State Department / USAID and VA for medical costs for the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and enhanced security...is a staggering and indefensible $1,086 billion.

Simple Calculation

A college degree from a public 4-year college costs, on average, $28,080 for in-state tuition and fees.

Recently, about 11.5 million students, ages 18 to 24, were enrolled in either a 2- or 4-year colleges (October 2008).

11,500,000 students x $28,080 tuition = $323 billion

The price to provide students, 18-24, with a 4-year college education is about $323 billion. Useful, indisputably constructive, and roughly equivalent to the $304 billion outlay in Afghanistan since 9/11.

Destructive / Military		Constructive / Education
Iraq $748 billion* Afghanistan $304 billion* Security $29 billion* Unallocated $6 billion* *since 9/11 attack on WTC		College Tuition $323 billion

If the US were not beholden to what General Colin Powell coined the terror-industrial complex, we could provide higher education to all comers with a cool $764 billion to spare.

The only thing that can really destroy us is us. We shouldn't do it to ourselves, and we shouldn't use fear for political purposes —scaring people to death so they will vote for you, or scaring people to death so that we create a terror-industrial complex.
~ General Colin Powell GQ Interview, October 2007

Don't take the wacky assertions of anti-government extremists, like those in the Tea Party, too seriously, but understand the basis of their anger. They are disenfranchised. They are filled with animus for a US government that's done a shit job of providing the basics, and angered by a US government that has idly let its public infrastructure crumble.

As anti-government extremists see it, government takes their money, and then air-lifts their family members to foreign lands be maimed or killed in inexplicable and indefensible elective wars.

We can do better. We must.

Government works best when it helps its people. Plain & simple.

Reference Material

• What It Costs to Go to College, College Board.
• College Enrollment Hits All-Time High, Fueled by Community College Surge, Pew Research Center, October 2009.
• The Cost of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Other Global War on Terror Operations Since 9/11, July 2010.