Map of life expectancy at birth from Global Education Project.

Wednesday, March 15, 2006

Don't succumb to outrage fatigue

When you're experiencing the death of a thousand cuts, each one may cease to matter, but we've got to keep fighting back. From the Massachusetts Public Health Association:

The Centers for Disease Control, National Institutes of Health, and federal programs that provide the foundation for all state public health infrastructures are threatened with devastating cuts.

The U.S. Senate is currently debating its version of the FY07 budget. Although the Senate Budget Committee reported out a budget that includes more funding for public health than President Bush proposed, it still cuts public health funding from last year.


By $7 billion, in fact. We have already spent $250 billion on the Iraq atrocity, and according to Joseph Stiglitz, who was formerly head economist at the World Bank and is a Nobel Prize winner, along with Linda Bilmes of the Kennedy school, it's going to end up costing us $2 trillion. (PDF). $7 billion is 3.5 thousandths of $2 trillion. That is .0035, or .35%. Very close to nothing, in other words.

Call your Senator and demand support for restoring 100% of public health funding that the Senate wants to cut from the budget. And oh yeah -- demand that we get the hell out of Iraq and stop squandering money and lives in the service of the delusions of a fool.

No comments: