wealth gap

budget cuts

One thing that continues to amaze me is how while politicians are trying to balance the budget they only focus on cutting small programs instead of cutting military spending, social security and medicare where most of the money is being spent. The United States spends more money on our military than the ten countries ranked below us for the most military spending. One easy way to cut the military cost would be to take out our troops from monitoring countries that do not need to be monitored anymore. America has troops in countries that have stable democracies as a result of wars that we fought a long time ago. The United States still even has troops in Germany from World War Two.

Another simple solution for balancing the budget is making small changes to social security. Currently only six percent of the first 100,000 dollars somebody makes is taxed for social security. So a poor person or a middle class person has 100 percent of his or her income taxed for social security whereas a rich person who can afford to pay only pays tax on the first 100,000 dollars. Paying social security on incomes over 100,000 dollars would only affect the richest 10 percent of Americans. Having the rich pay social security on all their income would be a simple way to fix the budget that does not even affect nine out of ten Americans. We need to start putting the big items on the table; cutting corners will not do.

socialist environment

The War on Drugs

Each year the United States spends fifty billion dollars prosecuting, using police force, and jailing people to support the war on drugs. Even though the United States spends a massive amount of money on the war on drugs they still have a higher drug use than countries that have organic drugs decriminalized. In the United States 69.6 % of the population has tried tobacco before, 41% has tried marijuana, 14.7% has tried cocaine, 3.4% has tried crack and 1.5% has tried heroine. In the Netherlands where organic drugs are decriminalized only 67.9% of people have tried tobacco, 15.6% of people tried marijuana, 2.1% of people have tried cocaine and only .3% of people have tried heroin. We learned from prohibition that regulation not banning works.

One of the reasons why the Netherlands has a lower drug rate is because they focus on educating their youth about drugs differently than the United States. In the United States marijuana and meth are both schedule one drugs. We teach children that smoking pot is equally as bad as doing meth. Even though 80% of people agree that marijuana is not a dangerous drug and over 40% of people have tried it at least one in their lifetime. The U.S. Surgeon General’s Office, The National Academy of Sciences and the U.S. Department of Education all agree that DARE is ineffective. A study done in Houston Texas found that DARE participants had a 29% increase in drug usage and a 34% increase in tobacco. We need to stop telling kids just say no and start telling them the honest affects of drugs.

Around 50 % of all people who are in jail now are in jail for non-violent drug offenses. In the United States we lock people up when we catch them doing drugs rather than requiring them to go to rehab. Although sending them to jail may temporarily help lock them up it does not help them deal with their addiction issues. If a person is an addict they will continue to do the drug regardless of whether it is legal and those people will continue to be locked up over and over again. However, if we provided free rehab to addicts or used that as an alternative to prisons we would help addicts put their life together and end up spending less money in the long run.

The worst part of the war on drugs is that it is un-winnable. In the 1970’s before the war on drugs heroin cost thirty dollars per a bag and was 5% pure drug. Now it cost four dollars per a bag and is 80-90% pure drug. 74% of people agree that the war on drugs is not working. One of the major issues is that now more and more drugs are able to be made just from stuff you could buy at a local grocery store so illegal drugs are becoming more and more accessible. Since drugs are illegal instead of regulated it creates a black market. That is why it is easier for teenagers to get marijuana than alcohol. We are fighting a war that is un-winnable.

Freakonomics Crime Rate