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"Perfect Actions"

 

Black Ice
Feeling the Invisible

December 9, 2010

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The very forces of nature are being rend by a storm in a world not seen by the eyes. This winter began with its usual grace with each day getting colder and colder with each descending pass of the arctic sun. As usual it didn't take long for the lakes to begin freezing over followed by the rivers growing into silent solemn highways stretching into the deepening void. This advanced cooling of the surface of the earth up here is a fortunate event as it renders the first snow as tenacious as talcum powder; the perfectly white precipitation descends to roads surfaces where it is blown off by the first breeze from a passing vehicle; plows are rarely seen on winter highway in the desert of the high arctic. Yet, this year something occurred as if someone had thrown a bolder into the fine mechanical workings of a silk textile mill.

November came with its usual temperatures reaching -38 at times and when it warmed up closer to zero there would be the usual snow fall that comes with warm weather between -5C to -20C; but as mentioned, something seriously went awry. During the third week of November the temperatures began to creep above zero and with this event the snow on the road sides became a bit heavy. Everyone noted the unusual warm spell but everyone also expected such weather to be fairly fleeting; what no one was expecting is what happened forty eight hours later. By the second day of the week the temperatures were getting close to five above zero but when I say we live in an arctic desert I mean we live someplace that hardly gets any precipitation be it snow or rain, yet on the third day rain is what began falling.

If it were a transient isolated shower all would have been well but it wasn't at all; rain began to fall in place of snow and it fell everywhere without relenting. The essential thing to remember with such an odd weather event is the fact that the ground has been frozen since the middle of September and by November the ground temperatures remain sub zero making the reason for "permafrost" a natural part of life in these parts. The rain came down in a continuous shower that lasted for days and the first shower froze to the surface of every solid thing instantly and the most dreadful was the surface of the highways. Within the first hours of rain fall the surface of the roads began to build up a solid surface of ice that grew in thickness with each passing hour. The only think slicker than ice is ice that is covered with liquid water.

The result of this anomalous event caused a living environment that turned a familiar life for arctic dwellers into a living nightmare. I wasn't on the road ways more than five minutes when my impatiens with a driver creeping along at five miles per hour caused me to try and speed around him; no sooner had I hit the accelerator and I found my vehicle totally out of control. It took some time to regain control of the vehicle I was driving and imparted sufficient shock to cause me to drive almost as slowly as this driver I tried to pass. However, five miles per hour would not permit me to get to work on time so I made an effort to engage my experiential knowledge with driving on black ice to get me to work on time.

 

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Where Your Income Tax Money Really Goes FY 2009

Total Outlays (Federal Funds): $2,650 billion 
MILITARY: 54% and $1,449 billion
NON-MILITARY: 46% and $1,210 billion

FY2009 federal piechart

HOW THESE FIGURES WERE DETERMINED

Current military” includes Dept. of Defense ($653 billion), the military portion from other departments ($150 billion), and an additional $162 billion to supplement the Budget’s misleading and vast underestimate of only $38 billion for the “war on terror.” “Past military” represents veterans’ benefits plus 80% of the interest on the debt.*

The Government Deception

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).

the government's deceptive pie chart

Source: Congressional Budget Office for FY2008

These figures are from an analysis of detailed tables in the “Analytical Perspectives” book of the Budget of the United States Government, Fiscal Year 2009. The figures are federal funds, which do not include trust funds — such as Social Security — that are raised and spent separately from income taxes. What you pay (or don’t pay) by April 15, 2008, goes to the federal funds portion of the budget. The government practice of combining trust and federal funds began during the Vietnam War, thus making the human needs portion of the budget seem larger and the military portion smaller.

*Analysts differ on how much of the debt stems from the military; other groups estimate 50% to 60%. We use 80% because we believe if there had been no military spending most (if not all) of the national debt would have been eliminated. For further explanation, please see box at bottom of page.

Are We Safe Yet?

Cost of the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars 
(billions of dollars)
spending on war
source: For 2001 to 2008 from Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, armscontrolcenter.org; for 2009, the Budget includes $70 billion in “allowances” for GWOT; WRL estimates an additional $130 billion will be authorized for spending in 2009 and subsequent years, making the total authorized $200 billion. This graph shows Budget Authority, while the pie on the front is Outlays.
Military spending: U.S. vs. World

U.S. Military Spending vs. The World

U.S. military spending – Dept. of Defense plus nuclear weapons (in $billions) – is equal to the military spending of the next 15 countries combined.

These numbers show military expenditures for each country. Some say that U.S. military spending will naturally be higher because it has the highest Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of any country. The United States accounts for 47 percent of the world’s total military spending, however the U.S.’s share of the world's GDP is about 21 percent. Also note that of the top 15 countries shown, at least 12 are considered allies of the U.S. The U.S. outspends Iran and North Korea by a ratio of 72 to one.

Source: Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation,http://old.armscontrolcenter.org/archives/002279.php; our graph uses a more comparable figure of $515 from actual 2006 U.S. military spending

WHAT YOU CAN DO
R E F U S E    T O    P A Y    F O R    W A R
investigate the following sites for more information
War Tax Boycott logo
Join the 2008 War Tax Boycott!
War Tax Resistance
WRL’s Overview of War Tax Resistance
NWTRCC
National War Tax Resistance
Coordinating Committee
A national clearinghouse of counselors and information
Hang Up on War
Hang Up on War
Refuse to pay the federal excise tax on local phone service(the tax on long distance phone service was eliminated in 2006). This tax has been used symbolically as a war tax since the Spanish-American War

RESOURCES

You can order the following resources from the WAR RESISTERS LEAGUE, 339 Lafayette Street, New York, NY 10012. (212) 228-0450, fax (212) 228-6193, e-mail: wrl@warresisters.org. Please add 20% for postage.

Why Do the Percentages Vary from Group to Group?

The U.S. Government says that military spending amounts to 20% of the budget, the Center for Defense Information (CDI) reports 51%, the Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL)reports 43%, and the War Resisters League claims 54%. Why the variation?

Different groups have different purposes in how they present the budget figures. WRL’s goal has been to show the percentage of money that goes to the military (current and past) so that people paying — or not paying — their federal taxes would know what portion of their payments are military-oriented. Also, some of the numbers are for different fiscal years.

There are at least five different factors to consider when analyzing the U.S. budget:

  • discretionary spending vs. total spending
  • budget authority vs. outlays
  • function vs. agency/department
  • federal funds vs. unified budget
  • time period

Discretionary Spending. The Center for Defense Information (CDI) has used "discretionary" spending — budget items that Congress is allowed to tinker with — which excludes so-called "mandatory" spending items (such as interest on the national debt and retirement pay). WRL does not make such distinctions and lumps them together.

Past Military Spending. If the government does not have enough money to finance a war (or spending for its hefty military budgets), they borrow through loans, savings bonds, and so forth. This borrowing (done heavily during World War II and the Vietnam War) comes back in later years as "hidden" military spending through interest payments on the national debt. 
       How much of the debt is considered “military” varies from group. As mentioned above, WRL uses 80% whereas FCNL uses 48%. Consequently, FCNL reports that 43% of the FY2007 budget is military (29% current military and 14% past military). WRL's figures are 54% of the FY2009 budget (36% current — which includes 7% for Iraq & Afghanistan wars — and 18% past).

Outlays vs. Budget Authority. WRL uses "outlays" rather than "budget authority," which is often preferred by the government, news media, and groups such as CDI. Outlays refer to spending done in a particular fiscal year, whereas budget authority refers to new spending authorized over a period of several future years. Consequently, CDI reported $421 billion in FY2005 budget authority for the military and $2,200 billion "over the next five years." While WRL reports outlays of $803 billion, plus an anticipated $162 billion in supplemental spending requests for Iraq and Afghanistan wars, plus $484 billion in past military spending — totaling $1,449 billion — just for FY2009.

Function vs. Agency/Department. Not all military spending is done by the Department of Defense. For example, the Department of Energy is responsible for nuclear weapons. Consequently, calculations of military spending should consider the function of the budget item regardless of the department or agency in charge of it. However, not everyone agrees what constitutes a military function. For example, WRL includes the 70% of Homeland Security (which includes the Coast Guard), and half of NASA in military spending, while other groups do not.

Federal Funds vs. Unified Budget. WRL uses "federal funds" rather than the "unified budget" figures that the government prefers. Federal funds exclude trust fund money (e.g., social security), which is raised separately (e.g., the FICA and Medicare deductions in paychecks) and is specifically ear-marked for particular programs. By combining trust funds with federal funds, the percentage of spending on the military appears smaller, a deceptive practice first used by the government in the late 1960s as the Vietnam War became more and more unpopular.

What period are we talking about? Finally, there is some variation in figures because different fiscal years are used. WRL’s figures (above) are for FY2009 (Oct. 1, 2008 to Sep. 30, 2009) as are the most recent U.S. government figures. FCNL sometimes does their analysis for the most recent completed year or FY2007 (Oct. 1, 2006 to Sep. 30, 2007).

 

War Resisters League
339 Lafayette Street
New York, NY 10012
(212) 228-0450
fax (212) 228-6193
wrl@warresisters.org
WRL homepage


Believing war to be a crime against humanity, the War Resisters League, founded in 1923, advocates Gandhian nonviolence as the method for creating a democratic society free of war, racism, sexism, and human exploitation.