Sunday, September 17, 2006
The Military Spending Burden on Duluth and Minnesota
The Military Spending Burden on
Duluth and Minnesota
Report Prepared by Robert Kosuth
August 27, 2006
For the Northland Anti-War Coalition
I. The Overall Military Spending Budget.
The overall military spending budget is far more than the already outrageous sum submitted to Congress as the Department of Defense (DoD) budget. Military spending as a part of the government budget is also consistently misrepresented due to the fact that much actual military spending is actually hidden in other departments, for example, as nuclear weapons development is part of the Department of Energy. Another common misrepresentation is to show the DoD budget as part of all government programs, rather than as part of discretionary spending, the part of government spending that is actually controlled by Congress, as opposed to social security funds, which are earmarked to go into a separate budget that Congress cannot touch from year to year.
Below are two charts that show the difference. The first, from the National Priorities Project website www.nationalpriorities.org, includes non-DoD spending (except veterans benefits & energy), while the second is a typically slavish NY Times reprint of a government press release masquerading as news.
The Government DeceptionThe 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.
Source: New York Times, Feb. 7, 2005, based on
Budget of the United States FY2007.
(from War Resisters League: www.warresisters.org)
II. Spending for the Iraq War and Afghanistan. The chart below, from data from the Congressional Research Service (CRS), shows the additional spending for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, specially appropriated in addition to DoD spending above. (These totals are estimated as of the end of FY 06September 30, 2006)
CRS Data on the Costs of the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan ($billions)
Fiscal Year
2001+2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 Total
Iraq 2.5 51.0 77.3 87.3 100.4 318.5
Afghanistan [1] 18.1 17.0 15.1 18.1 19.9 88.2
Noble Eagle [2] 12.0 6.5 3.7 2.1 1.9 26.2
Unable to Allocate 3.9
Totals 32.6 78.4 96.1 107.5 122.2 439.9
(Source: The Cost of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Other Global War on terror Operations Since 9/11, Amy Belasco, CRS Report for Congress, RL33110, p. CRS-4)
1. Includes other global War on Terror activities.
2. Elsewhere includes Operation Noble Eagle in the US (facility security and (formerly) fighter patrols over population centers).
III. How Much is a Billion Dollars??? Well, its a lot of money but most cognitive psychologists would probably agree that such concepts are beyond the human ken. To help get closer to visualizing how much a billion is consider the following.
1. If you were to try to count to a billion, counting once every second, it would take you 31 years, 259 days, 1 hour, 46 minutes and 40 seconds to reach a billion.
2. If you had the job of going out and spending $1000 per day until you spent 1 billion dollars, it would take you over 2,739 years to spend a billion dollars.
IV. Some National Data for Military Spending on the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq, the Overall Military Budget, and the War in Afghanistan.
1. Cost of Iraq War spending per household: $2,844 (source: NPP)
per person: $1,075
per taxpayer: $2,379
2. Rate of Iraq war spending (already spent or allocated) per hour: $10,000,000 (NPP)
per day: $244,000,000
V. The Minnesota Military Spending Burden.
Minnesotas tax burden for the Iraq invasion and occupation: $7,600,000,000 (NPP)
DoD & non-DoD military spending: $12,750,000,000*
Afghanistan invasion & occupation: 1,900,000,000
Total military spending burden for Minnesota: $22,340,000,000
*based on figures form the War Resisters League ($449 b. DoD + $114 b. non-DoD military spending) (www.warresisters.org)
VI. Trade-offs for Minnesotas 7.6 Billion Contribution to the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq (only Iraq!)
Taxpayers in Minnesota will pay $7.6 billion for the cost of war in Iraq. For the same amount of money, the following could have been provided:
999,184 People Receiving Health Care or
139,534 Elementary School Teachers or
1,090,342 Head Start Places for Children or
3,278,785 Children Receiving Health Care or
60,368 Affordable Housing Units or
720 New Elementary Schools or
1,074,885 Scholarships for University Students or
147,697 Music and Arts Teachers or
175,458 Public Safety Officers or
15,562,323 Homes with Renewable Electricity or
240,248 Port Container Inspectors
(Source: www.nationalpriorities.org)
Other trade-offs for Minnesotas 7.6 billion contribution to the invasion and occupation of Iraq (Iraq only!): Specific Minnesota budget items:
1. MN Pell Grants 2005-06 $342,000,000
(76,000 MN students x $4500 avg./student)
as a % of MN Iraq war contribution 4.5%
2. MFIP/AFDC (MN share) 2005 $76,465,581 1%
2006 $54,655,532 .7%
3. Minnesota Care 2005 $227,253,488 2.9%
2006 $255,211,663 3.5%
(Source: www.dhs.state.mn.us Family Self-Sufficiency Health Care Program Statistics, June 2006) Note: The average benefit per enrollee in 2006 is $281.70/mo.
4. MN DNR 2006-07 biennium budget $641,049,000 8.4%
VII. Duluth
Duluth will contribute over $91,000,000 toward the invasion and occupation of Iraq by the end of the fiscal yearSeptember 30, 2006.
(Source: www.costofwar.com)
Other trade-offs for Duluths $91 + million contribution to the invasion and occupation of Iraq (Iraq only!): Specific Duluth budget items:
1. Poverty. Duluth has over 12,000 individuals living below the federal poverty line. 20% of Duluth children are living in poverty. About 1,713 families are also below the federal poverty line of $13,423 for a family of 3 (one adult and 2 children).
(Source: p.6 Duluth Regional Assessment Project www.rapsite.org)
Cost to raise 1,713 families out of poverty to the level of considered livable by the Economic Policy Institute ($28,933): $26,568,630 = 29% of Duluths Iraq war burden.
2. Hunger. Duluths Hunger Project (a common effort of the Damiano Center, United Gospel Mission, the Salvation Army and CHUM) has a total budget of $1,200,000, which equals 1.3% of Duluths Iraq war burden.
3. Emergency Shelter. CHUMs emergency shelter for the homeless has a budget of $675,000 (including staff), equivalent to .7% of Duluths Iraq war burden.
4. School lunches. 35% of Duluths K-12 students are eligible for free or reduced lunches at school. The school district serves 1,300,000 free lunches per year at a total cost of $2,288,000 = 2.5% of Duluths contribution to the invasion and occupation of Iraq.
5. Housing. 1,212 households in Duluth are on the waiting list to get Section 8 housing vouchers.
6. Budget Crisis. Duluth faces a budget crisis due to the cost of its insurance policies for active and retired city workers. For fiscal 2004-2005, the insurance cost for the city of Duluth was $12,208,900, 13.4% of what the Duluth paid for invading and occupying Iraq. Budget cuts, fire and police lay offs, and privatization of utilities have all been discussed as ways of dealing with this crisis. Parks and Recreation in Duluth received $7 million for its 2005 budget, less than 8% of the Iraq war cost to Dulthians, and it will probably be cut to make up for rising insurance costs. Needless to say, city employees will have to take pay cuts, pay higher premiums, or forego retirement until a much later age.
Of course, not all of Duluths health care insurance problems can be taken care of with military spending. By the end of 2006, according to the Post Employment Health Care Task Force Report on Implementation of Recommendations, Duluth will have a liability of $308,900,000. This is really a problem of health insurance on a state and national level.
VIII. Health Care.
According to Minnesota COACT (www.COACT.org) 585,000 Minnesotans under the age of 65 will go without health insurance for 6 months within any given 2-year period. Assuming $500/mo for private insurance (compared to the payment of $281/mo for Minnesota Care), it would take only 24% of Minnesotas Iraq war burden to make up this cost.
However, the real need is for a single payer health care program. This is the solution to the problem in Duluth, in Minnesota and across the country. The Physicians for a National Health Program (http://www.pnhp.org/facts/singlepayer_faq.php) have made just such a proposal. Their program would be funded by modest payroll taxes on employers (3.3%), along with current Medicare payroll taxes, and higher taxes on the wealthiest 5% of Americans.
The interesting part is that the entire program would cost $1.86 trillion, a lot of money to be sure. The more staggering fact is that more than half this figure could be covered from current military ($563 billion), the wars in Iraq & Afghanistan ($407 billion) and the interest on the national debt that comes from military spending ($282 billion) for a total of $1.25 trillion! Even some movement in this direction would go a long way in solving the most pressing social-economic problem facing American families todayhealth care.
IX. Economic Conversion
Time and space do not permit, but there is a huge literature about how military spending not only robs citizens of money that they could be using right now to meet human needs but also how it harms economic development in the long run due to the lack of funds for investment in job creation and technological development, whether the expenditure is for small arms in a developing country or for the latest generation of nuclear weapons in a superpower. We have barely scratched the surface of this issue.
Duluth and Minnesota
Report Prepared by Robert Kosuth
August 27, 2006
For the Northland Anti-War Coalition
I. The Overall Military Spending Budget.
The overall military spending budget is far more than the already outrageous sum submitted to Congress as the Department of Defense (DoD) budget. Military spending as a part of the government budget is also consistently misrepresented due to the fact that much actual military spending is actually hidden in other departments, for example, as nuclear weapons development is part of the Department of Energy. Another common misrepresentation is to show the DoD budget as part of all government programs, rather than as part of discretionary spending, the part of government spending that is actually controlled by Congress, as opposed to social security funds, which are earmarked to go into a separate budget that Congress cannot touch from year to year.
Below are two charts that show the difference. The first, from the National Priorities Project website www.nationalpriorities.org, includes non-DoD spending (except veterans benefits & energy), while the second is a typically slavish NY Times reprint of a government press release masquerading as news.
The Government DeceptionThe 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.
Source: New York Times, Feb. 7, 2005, based on
Budget of the United States FY2007.
(from War Resisters League: www.warresisters.org)
II. Spending for the Iraq War and Afghanistan. The chart below, from data from the Congressional Research Service (CRS), shows the additional spending for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, specially appropriated in addition to DoD spending above. (These totals are estimated as of the end of FY 06September 30, 2006)
CRS Data on the Costs of the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan ($billions)
Fiscal Year
2001+2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 Total
Iraq 2.5 51.0 77.3 87.3 100.4 318.5
Afghanistan [1] 18.1 17.0 15.1 18.1 19.9 88.2
Noble Eagle [2] 12.0 6.5 3.7 2.1 1.9 26.2
Unable to Allocate 3.9
Totals 32.6 78.4 96.1 107.5 122.2 439.9
(Source: The Cost of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Other Global War on terror Operations Since 9/11, Amy Belasco, CRS Report for Congress, RL33110, p. CRS-4)
1. Includes other global War on Terror activities.
2. Elsewhere includes Operation Noble Eagle in the US (facility security and (formerly) fighter patrols over population centers).
III. How Much is a Billion Dollars??? Well, its a lot of money but most cognitive psychologists would probably agree that such concepts are beyond the human ken. To help get closer to visualizing how much a billion is consider the following.
1. If you were to try to count to a billion, counting once every second, it would take you 31 years, 259 days, 1 hour, 46 minutes and 40 seconds to reach a billion.
2. If you had the job of going out and spending $1000 per day until you spent 1 billion dollars, it would take you over 2,739 years to spend a billion dollars.
IV. Some National Data for Military Spending on the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq, the Overall Military Budget, and the War in Afghanistan.
1. Cost of Iraq War spending per household: $2,844 (source: NPP)
per person: $1,075
per taxpayer: $2,379
2. Rate of Iraq war spending (already spent or allocated) per hour: $10,000,000 (NPP)
per day: $244,000,000
V. The Minnesota Military Spending Burden.
Minnesotas tax burden for the Iraq invasion and occupation: $7,600,000,000 (NPP)
DoD & non-DoD military spending: $12,750,000,000*
Afghanistan invasion & occupation: 1,900,000,000
Total military spending burden for Minnesota: $22,340,000,000
*based on figures form the War Resisters League ($449 b. DoD + $114 b. non-DoD military spending) (www.warresisters.org)
VI. Trade-offs for Minnesotas 7.6 Billion Contribution to the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq (only Iraq!)
Taxpayers in Minnesota will pay $7.6 billion for the cost of war in Iraq. For the same amount of money, the following could have been provided:
999,184 People Receiving Health Care or
139,534 Elementary School Teachers or
1,090,342 Head Start Places for Children or
3,278,785 Children Receiving Health Care or
60,368 Affordable Housing Units or
720 New Elementary Schools or
1,074,885 Scholarships for University Students or
147,697 Music and Arts Teachers or
175,458 Public Safety Officers or
15,562,323 Homes with Renewable Electricity or
240,248 Port Container Inspectors
(Source: www.nationalpriorities.org)
Other trade-offs for Minnesotas 7.6 billion contribution to the invasion and occupation of Iraq (Iraq only!): Specific Minnesota budget items:
1. MN Pell Grants 2005-06 $342,000,000
(76,000 MN students x $4500 avg./student)
as a % of MN Iraq war contribution 4.5%
2. MFIP/AFDC (MN share) 2005 $76,465,581 1%
2006 $54,655,532 .7%
3. Minnesota Care 2005 $227,253,488 2.9%
2006 $255,211,663 3.5%
(Source: www.dhs.state.mn.us Family Self-Sufficiency Health Care Program Statistics, June 2006) Note: The average benefit per enrollee in 2006 is $281.70/mo.
4. MN DNR 2006-07 biennium budget $641,049,000 8.4%
VII. Duluth
Duluth will contribute over $91,000,000 toward the invasion and occupation of Iraq by the end of the fiscal yearSeptember 30, 2006.
(Source: www.costofwar.com)
Other trade-offs for Duluths $91 + million contribution to the invasion and occupation of Iraq (Iraq only!): Specific Duluth budget items:
1. Poverty. Duluth has over 12,000 individuals living below the federal poverty line. 20% of Duluth children are living in poverty. About 1,713 families are also below the federal poverty line of $13,423 for a family of 3 (one adult and 2 children).
(Source: p.6 Duluth Regional Assessment Project www.rapsite.org)
Cost to raise 1,713 families out of poverty to the level of considered livable by the Economic Policy Institute ($28,933): $26,568,630 = 29% of Duluths Iraq war burden.
2. Hunger. Duluths Hunger Project (a common effort of the Damiano Center, United Gospel Mission, the Salvation Army and CHUM) has a total budget of $1,200,000, which equals 1.3% of Duluths Iraq war burden.
3. Emergency Shelter. CHUMs emergency shelter for the homeless has a budget of $675,000 (including staff), equivalent to .7% of Duluths Iraq war burden.
4. School lunches. 35% of Duluths K-12 students are eligible for free or reduced lunches at school. The school district serves 1,300,000 free lunches per year at a total cost of $2,288,000 = 2.5% of Duluths contribution to the invasion and occupation of Iraq.
5. Housing. 1,212 households in Duluth are on the waiting list to get Section 8 housing vouchers.
6. Budget Crisis. Duluth faces a budget crisis due to the cost of its insurance policies for active and retired city workers. For fiscal 2004-2005, the insurance cost for the city of Duluth was $12,208,900, 13.4% of what the Duluth paid for invading and occupying Iraq. Budget cuts, fire and police lay offs, and privatization of utilities have all been discussed as ways of dealing with this crisis. Parks and Recreation in Duluth received $7 million for its 2005 budget, less than 8% of the Iraq war cost to Dulthians, and it will probably be cut to make up for rising insurance costs. Needless to say, city employees will have to take pay cuts, pay higher premiums, or forego retirement until a much later age.
Of course, not all of Duluths health care insurance problems can be taken care of with military spending. By the end of 2006, according to the Post Employment Health Care Task Force Report on Implementation of Recommendations, Duluth will have a liability of $308,900,000. This is really a problem of health insurance on a state and national level.
VIII. Health Care.
According to Minnesota COACT (www.COACT.org) 585,000 Minnesotans under the age of 65 will go without health insurance for 6 months within any given 2-year period. Assuming $500/mo for private insurance (compared to the payment of $281/mo for Minnesota Care), it would take only 24% of Minnesotas Iraq war burden to make up this cost.
However, the real need is for a single payer health care program. This is the solution to the problem in Duluth, in Minnesota and across the country. The Physicians for a National Health Program (http://www.pnhp.org/facts/singlepayer_faq.php) have made just such a proposal. Their program would be funded by modest payroll taxes on employers (3.3%), along with current Medicare payroll taxes, and higher taxes on the wealthiest 5% of Americans.
The interesting part is that the entire program would cost $1.86 trillion, a lot of money to be sure. The more staggering fact is that more than half this figure could be covered from current military ($563 billion), the wars in Iraq & Afghanistan ($407 billion) and the interest on the national debt that comes from military spending ($282 billion) for a total of $1.25 trillion! Even some movement in this direction would go a long way in solving the most pressing social-economic problem facing American families todayhealth care.
IX. Economic Conversion
Time and space do not permit, but there is a huge literature about how military spending not only robs citizens of money that they could be using right now to meet human needs but also how it harms economic development in the long run due to the lack of funds for investment in job creation and technological development, whether the expenditure is for small arms in a developing country or for the latest generation of nuclear weapons in a superpower. We have barely scratched the surface of this issue.
