The total cost of the war in Iraq is now above 161 billion dollars and is still rising. That is an incredible amount of money that is being put forth to fight an ongoing war against insurgents in Iraq. This money could potentially be put toward finding a solution to some of America’s more personal issues, such as the declining amount of government money in schools, the increasing number of people being diagnosed with AIDS, and the increasing poverty level. Putting money towards finding solutions to these issues would make America a better place to live.
Many schools are being closed down every year due to the lack of money being put into those schools. Some of the money spent on the war could be allocated for these schools in order to keep them open. For example, after the Board of Education announced that thirty-four public schools would close by next fall the executive vice-president, Virginia Cantrell, of the Detroit Federation of Teachers said, “We are in a crisis” (Rummel par 2). Cantrell said the loss of more than half of the city’s population in the past thirty years and the growth of charter schools leaves fewer students in the public school system (Rummel par 2). In addition to keeping the schools open, the money would also help stop other problems such as the lack of teachers and poor teacher-student ratios. In November of 2000, students at Guy Benjamin Elementary School were sent home after the teachers who showed up left(McCracken par 1). The school closed at 11:30 when the principal had only three staff members remaining to supervise more than 100 students (McCracken par 2). The teachers were striking because of inadequate pay. The Territorial Court Judge ended the three week strike by ordering the teachers to come back to work (McCracken par 3). The money used for the war could be allotted to pay teachers more money to keep the people who currently are teachers and as an incentive to get more people to become teachers. This would eliminate the problem of people not wanting to become teachers solely because teachers do not make enough money. Furthermore, the money could be used to buy needed supplies. Many schools do not have sufficient amounts of books or computers, if any, that are in good condition. The money could also be used to renovate old schools that are in bad condition. Stu...
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... such as the budget and social security could benefit from money used for the war in Iraq. Devoting money to solving these problems would not only help solve these problems but would have an effect on America’s overall well being. The bottom line is that there is an enormous amount of money being used to fight this war and if the money was used more efficiently, it could not only be used for the war but also be used for the wars that Americans currently battle everyday at home.
Works Cited
Jeanie Lerche Davis. “CDC: HIV/AIDS Statistics Up in America”. WebMDHealth. 28
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McCracken, David. “Benjamin School closes for lack of teachers”. World History
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Rummel John. “‘Devastating’ school closings hit Detroit”. People’s Weekly World. 14
April 2005. People’s Weekly World Newspaper. 14 April 2005. .
Siddiqi, Samana. “Statistics on poverty & food wastage in America”. SoundVision.com.
26 April 2004. Islamic Information & Products. 14 April 2005. .
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Denise Grady’s (2006) article sound a strong wake up call for the American government and for the American public to re-evaluate their guiding principles towards war in Iraq and the continued presence of the American soldiers in the Iraqi soil. Grady delineated the enormous damages the war had costs in not only monetary terms but also the future of thousands of promising young and talented men and women sent in the Iraq War; that had no clear benefits to them or the American people.
School funding is a recurring issue in the modern era. Debates ranging from give schools more money, to get rid of the system in place and reform a new idea have been plaguing the world over the years. “The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, signed in 2009, provided more than $100 billion in education aid to offset budget cuts..” (School Finance). Later, “Congress provided an additional $10 billion in 2010 to avert mass teacher layoffs (Education Week, "Total Recovery Act")” (School Funding). These numbers are just a sample of the struggles in school funding, that is costing a ton of money to keep afloat. “There are many ways schools fund varying from state to state and even school to school. Income taxes, corporate taxes, sales taxes, and other fees provide 48 percent of the elementary and secondary school funds. 44 percent of local districts draw money from local property taxes. The federal government makes up approximately 8 percent of state education budgets. These funds are a dealt out on a per-student basis, and categorically to ensure enough resources for each special program or facility” (School Funding). These funds play a huge role in every student's education, either positive or negative. The three main areas that need to be addressed in the school budget are extracurricular funding, building and equipment maintenance, and last but not least staff funding.
The country needs to start monitoring how the government is spending the federal budget and they need to start splitting it fairly to benefit our country. 83% of the federal budget is spent on the Big Five which are the main expenses in the budget. We have to stop spending it all on the Big Five. Our government should really pay attention to what we need most of in this country and focus on the needs. The government needs to take away 20% of the Big Five and split it to categories that need it.
The improvements made by public schools should not be discounted, either. While there are certainly schools and school districts that remain very troubled those administrators and schools boards are not standing idly by. There are continuous improvements in such schools, and there needs to be even more. Taking money from them when efforts are being made to improve their condition will clearly on hinder such improvement. Private schools are and should remain an option for all parents, but our society mustn't waver when it comes to supporting our public schools.
However, failure to procure any putative weapons of mass destruction in Iraq forced Realist apologists to invoke the concept of “offensive Realism” to explain the Iraq war of 2003. They argued that Iraq’s acquisition of uranium and aluminum tubes posed a “Security Dilemma” to the U.S. and her allies. According to Wheeler and Booth, security Dilemmas...
The Vietnam War was the longest and most unpopular war in which Americans ever fought. And there is no reckoning the cost. The toll in suffering, sorrow, in rancorous national turmoil can never be tabulated. No one wants ever to see America so divided again. And for many of the more than two million American veterans of the war, the wounds of Vietnam will never heal.
“Pay any Price: Greed, Power and Endless War”, is written by James Risen, a veteran journalist and two time Pulitzer Prize winner, who has written many articles about the U.S government. The book was published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in October of 2014. It contains 309 pages and falls under the non fiction genre. It includes an overview of the author’s sources and notes relating to the validity of Risen’s research.
The Civil War, World War I, the Vietnam War, World War II, and the conflict in the Middle East are all wars that have been fought over the difference of opinions, yet come at the cost of the soldier 's fighting them; Humans killing other humans, and death is just one of the many emotional scars soldiers of war face. Why do we go to war when this is the cost? For many it is because they are unaware of the psychological cost of war, they are only aware of the monetary cost or the personal gains they get from war. Tim O 'Brien addresses the true cost of war in "The Things They Carried". O 'Brien suggests that psychological trauma caused by war warps the perception of life in young Americans drafted into the Vietnam War. He does this through Lieutenant
Defense receives the most support and money. Politicians support military spending, mainly because it is “the only form of large-scale public investment that can consistently win political support” (Pollin). However, the heavy support for military spending is counterproductive for our nation’s economy. Since military spending increased in 2001, several industries and programs have had to “bite the bullet.” The Department of Education often gets fewer funds each fiscal year to cover the military budget. Then again, the United States leads all countries in money spent on education. The U.S. education system is well funded, but that statistic is very misleading. If the high cost of college is excluded, the United States ranks slightly above average in education spending (OECD). Per the OECD, U.S. spending is decreasing at a 1% average (OECD). This doesn’t seem like much, but it is still a step in the wrong direction. Only Mexico, Iceland, and Ireland have cut more (OECD). Coincidentally, the percentage of teachers that quit within five years is extremely high at 46% (OECD)! This isn’t surprising considering all teachers in the U.S. work so many hours and are still underpaid. U.S. primary school teachers spend the most time in the classroom amongst all PISA countries
For decades now, there have been educational problems in the inner city schools in the United States. The schools inability to teach some students relates to the poor conditions in the public schools. Some of the conditions are the lack of funds that give students with the proper supplies, inexperienced teachers, inadequate resources, low testing scores and the crime-infested neighborhoods. These conditions have been an issue for centuries, but there is nothing being done about it. Yet, state and local governments focus on other priorities, including schools with better academics. It is fair to say that some schools need more attention than other does. However, when schools have no academic problems then the attention should be focused elsewhere, particularly in the inner city schools.
Military defense spending should be increased because we need better weapons, more defenses, and increased safety. If the military got better weapons we could out gun any army that could come our way or it could even repeal other enemies from an attack. Increasing money spend on defense we could pay for more protection. More protection would mean our soldiers on our base feeling more
A major problem with public school is lack of funding, and it seems as if nobody follows the money once it gets to the school. The students and staff both suffer from the lack of money in schools. I attended a really poor middle school named Bishop-Spaugh Middle School. In middle school, students were almost never assigned any homework because students didn’t have any books. Teachers at this school also were compelled to buy many essential items such as paper, markers, and erasers because the school didn’t have enough money to provide the supplies to them. Money inside of schools isn’t being handled correctly. In the movie The Cartel, $1 billion was given to a construction company to build and improve schools. However, a couple of years passed and the company never built a single structure and the money was gone. Nobody knew where the money disappeared to (Ventures). The same people in charge when the money disappeared stayed in charge for a very long time. Because of the lack of money, schools we...
To help with the limited funds produced by the government, multiple organizations assist schools with the much needed funds. The Great Recession triggered the cutbacks in school funding. The government did not want to lay off a bevy of teachers, so it provided a mass of funds to help temporarily. The government made this situation an even bigger dilemma by briefly giving funds to the schools in need. When the government stops providing funds is when it starts to affect schools. States around the country now need to decide to whether restore revenue or let the cuts happen (Baker). The government decided to stop offering funds to schools in 2011. The state revenues still have not recovered from the recession; thus, many schools still do not have the proper funds that are needed. In order to help with the funds, there are numerous organizations that were made as an aid to provide these much needed funds (Oliff). One of the organization is Th...
Even in this time of struggle, with billions of dollars going towards various war efforts overseas, America still has managed to keep taxpayer investments in education higher than that of funds for national defense (U.S Department of Education). In the 2004-05 school year, there was an estimated amount of 536 billion dollars set aside from taxpayer investment for education purposes. Without a doubt, education is a priority for the American government, and if these funds are used in the correct way, there is no reason why each and every kid in the United States shouldn’t be getting a quality education. However, the organization of the financial system is flawed, funds are not handled proportionately at the state level; rather, this system favors the wealthier districts and hands more funds to them while the less wealthier districts are handed a smaller pool of funds. This really affects America’s quality of education, which also reflects upon how America fairs on the world stage when it comes to competition in education with other countries. The disorganization of funds in the United States can be seen in the Hoover City School district, which has bought every student in that district an iPad for use in school. The first problem with this is that this school district does not even have a viable bus system that can transport students to and from school. Secondly, not even 20 miles from this district lies the Birmingham City School district where a little more than half the students are graduating, compared to Hoover City Schools where a bit more than 90 percent of the students are graduating. If anything, the state should be working towards improving educational standards in lower-income communities rather than debating on the log...
Proper school funding is one of the keys to having a successful school. Americans believe that funding is the biggest problem in public schools. School improvements revolve around funding. There needs to be funding not only in the successful schools but also the schools that aren’t doing as well. In documentary, Waiting for Superman, it talks about how smaller class sizes will help students. Funding is what will help the smaller class sizes. State funding mechanisms are subject to intense political and economic scrutiny (Leonard). Studies have shown that funding is inversely related to accreditation levels (Leonard). School funding needs to be increased, but there must be accountability as well.