US Tax season: Action day against occupation and war

Haitham

16. April 2007

In the US, there is a saying that “two things are only certain in life: Death and Taxes“.

Tax deadline in the US is traditionally on April 15, however, this year it was extended to April 17th because April 15th was a Sunday and Monday is public holidays.

Anyway, here are relevant facts and figures for US taxpayers:

• Percentage of US discretionary budget spent on education and other social services: 8%
• Percentage of US discretionary budget spent for military: 57% (but the wars on Iraq and Afghanistan are funded in supplementary budget requests so must be add to that!)
• US Military Budget as a percent of World total military expenditures: 49%
• Number of Americans classified as “food insecure” in 2004: 38 million
• Number of Americans without health insurance: 45 million
• Total direct aid to Israel 1948-2006: $255 billion
• Total Cost of US Support for Israel: $1.688 trillion (not counting money and lives lost in Israel propelled wars like Iraq, not counting loss of $trillions in business with the rest of the world because of US support for Israel etc)
• Federal aid for each resident in Louisiana in 2002 (from their taxes): $1,500
• Direct U.S. aid for each Israeli citizen in 2003 (per capita income in Israel-$16,710; they do not pay taxes to the US): $581
• Direct U.S. aid for each Ethiopian citizen in 2004 (per capita income in Ethiopia - $110): $2.50
• Percentage of U.S. foreign aid that goes to Israel: 27%
• Population of Israel as percentage of total world population: 0.1%
• Number of Palestinian minors killed by Israeli security forces (2000-2007): 814
• Total number of Palestinians injured or killed (September 2000-April 2007): 31,296
• Number of bullets fired by Israeli security forces in the first week of the second Intifada: 1,300,000
• Number of unexploded Israeli bombs strewn across South Lebanon after the 2006 war: 1,000,000 or 1.4 per resident

If you need more info on how your government spent your taxes, check out this:
http://nationalpriorities.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=286&Itemid=61

Action: Tell Your Rep. TODAY: No More Money for Bush’s War!

[Source: Mazin Qumsiyeh, Image by Ben Heine]