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Speak Up, Before Our Cities Totally Collapse!! by Philip A. Farruggio

by Philip A. Farruggio
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
February 8, 2011

I drive up and down the main thoroughfares of Volusia County, Florida, where I live. All I can see are For Sale or For Lease signs outside of once thriving businesses, now reduced to boards of plywood in broken windows. We already know the story about the millions of residential foreclosures. You don’t need me to discuss that as well. Let’s face it, Main Street America is broke. Wal-Marts open their entrances like dragon mouths, inhaling purses and wallets alike. The Mom & Pop retailer is becoming a thing of the past. Our schools, libraries, police and fire departments and other city services lay off workers in attempts to balance budgets. Yet how many of us realize that fifty cents of each our federal tax dollars goes for military spending? At one time Uncle Sam could afford to send Federal Block Grant money to the states to help subsidize many of the aforementioned services… not anymore!

Is there a solution? There most certainly is. The beauty of this solution is that it transcends both political parties. Matter of fact, true libertarian conservatives like Rep. Ron Paul and progressives like Ralph Nader agree 100 % on this issue: We need to drastically cut military spending! Taking the mantle, there is a nationwide citizen’s movement, totally non partisan that is out there speaking about this. We call it The 25 Per Cent Solution. Since our military budget is well over 650 billion dollars a year, which is almost double what it was 10 years ago, it is time to make major adjustments…. Before it is too late! Congress has the power to do this without even creating or changing any law. Why? Well, military spending comes under the onus of Discretionary Spending. Congress has the power of the purse, given to it by our constitution. Discretionary spending can be altered by a simple vote.

We the people are supposed to control our Congress, not the other way around. If enough of us stand together and demand these cuts in a bloated and unnecessary military budget, we can save our cities. Doing the math, one finds out that 25% of 650+ billion comes out to around 160+ billion dollars…. About the same amount as the total budget shortfalls of all 50 states combined! All we citizens of this great republic need to do is contact our Congressional representatives, city council members, state legislators, and of course our President, stating: If you don’t support this plan, we will NOT vote for you in the next election. Matter of fact, any new candidate who runs for office that will not support the 25% Solution should not get our vote. Tell them as much the minute they announce their candidacy.

Philip A. Farruggio is son and grandson of Brooklyn NYC longshoremen. He is an activist leader and free lance columnist. Since the 2000 elections, he has written over 200 columns, many posted on various sites worldwide. Recently, he is finding a home at Dandelion Salad, New Jersey activist Ed Dunphy’s progressivepatriots.net or at his own blog at www.opensalon.com. Philip can be reached at paf1222@bellsouth.net.

see

Solomon, Nader, Cornel West and Chomsky: Building a Powerful Left in the U.S.

The Economy Sucks and or Collapse 2

http://vodpod.com/dandelionsalad/tag/economy

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6 thoughts on “Speak Up, Before Our Cities Totally Collapse!! by Philip A. Farruggio”

  1. Pingback: Still voting for these hypocrites and liars. Why? by Philip A. Farruggio « Dandelion Salad

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  4. my brother lives in florida too. and was in housing , and has been out of work for some time . but phillip , my other brother lives in california and says that it is terrible out there. and tells me that Nevada is the worst in this regard. is that true ?

  5. i agree ariel with your take on things. yet, what is the solution? well, perhaps it is for we who care to first educate our neighbors and then join with enough of them to stand and speak out.
    i stand each week on the same street corner for 6 plus years now. we can only get 7 or 8 regulars to join us.
    i pray the day comes when we can attract most of our neighbors for that one hour a week…. then i feel the ‘ worm will turn ‘ .
    i had to look up the word carapace. great word. thanks for adding to my ( now ) too simplistic vocabularry.

  6. Thank you for stating the obvious. It is obvious if you use logic, but actually the people running things will never agree to checking the military because they are megalomaniacs intent on hegemony in the world today, and the U.S. populace has been subsumed in their corporate takeover of this country. Our democracy has become a carapace. Anyone who believes that it could still function or be allowed to function still believes the lies.

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