Each time the tax was due to expire, however, it was renewed instead. For this we have to thank the Act for Better Childcare of 1990, to which was attached the first ever permanent telephone tax. Though ostensibly to fund childcare, the tax goes directly into the General Fund along with income taxes, excise taxes, customs duties, and so on, and half of every dollar in that fund is spent on war. Fanfare about the current federal budget surplus notwithstanding, we are still burdened by an enormous national debt, and anywhere from 50 to 80 percent of it is directly attributable to one military campaign or another. So the bottom line is that half of all our tax dollars pay for war.
Militarism is our government s addiction to war and to the perpetuation of war-making technology.
Militarism is when our military spending dwarfs every other category of domestic and international spending, all other nation s military budgets, and probably exceeds all other spending by state-sanctioned and rebel armies in the world combined. Militarism is a permanent war-time economy in an era of no territorial threats or even no enemies of comparable stature anywhere. Militarism celebrates the history of generals and warriors and includes peacemakers as colorful exceptions. Militarism is the dehumanization of anyone different from ourselves. It s the economic violence of poverty and disregard for human needs, and violence against women that goes unreported or unnoticed.