Thou Shalt Not Bear False Witness-The Lies We Tell Ourselves About America
By Frosty Troy
[Frosty Troy is Editor of the Oklahoma Observer.]
A lie is half way around the world before the truth can get its boots on. Surely the most abused Commandment in America has to be that one about bearing false witness.
The chronic dissembling about religion, taxes, education and other social issues emanates as often from those calling themselves "religious" as from the pagans among us.
From Pat Robertson and D. James Kennedy to James Dobson and Rush Limbaugh, the litany is the same-America is on the low road to hell. Check the facts. Do a little homework. Be amazed at what a good country this is, warts and all.
Fiction: Americans hate their government. You hear it constantly on talk radio, you read about it in newspapers and news weeklies, you are bombarded by negative TV reports. But is it true?
Fact: Americans care as much about their government as they ever have but they despair of some of the antics and actions of current elected officials-especially in Congress. Need proof? Check the survey project by the Washington Post, Kaiser Family Foundation and Harvard University.
Confidence in the Supreme Court? Only 16% lack confidence. Support for the Clinton Administration? Only 33% say they have very little confidence, but 41% have very little confidence in Congress. Medicine and the military rank highest at 92% approvability, while big business and the news media rank lowest, 66% and 60% respectively.
What turns off Americans? They are ticked off by inefficiencies in government and endless catering to wealthy special interests. They want more decision-making at the state level because it can tackle and solve problems more quickly. Huge majorities want Medicare and Social Security kept intact.
Fiction: America has become a godless, secular anti-Christian society warring on those of the Christian faith.
Fact: The Economist of London funded an international poll that revealed 82% of Americans consider themselves religious, compared to 55% in Britain and 54% in Germany. America leads the industrial world in weekly church attendance-55%. In Catholic ltaly 17%, France 10%, Britain 14%, Sweden 4%.
The Princeton Research Center reports that 96% of Americans believe in God, nine out of 10 own a bible (27% own more than four bibles!) 92% have a preferred faith and 69% are actually members of a religious group. There are 1,328 religious radio stations in America today, compared to 399 in 1972. There are 163 full-time religious TV stations, compared to 10 in 1977.
Fiction: America`s public education system is failing.
Fact: Public education has never been more successful for the vast majority of students, despite what the critics say. Consider the facts: The dropout rate is down to a record 11%, the college attendance and graduation rate is tied with Japan, both ACT and SAT scores are up, up up. While nearly 400,000 students drop out each year, the nation is averaging more than 450,000 GEDs annually.
America has serious problems in inner city schools but they are a fraction of the 88,000 public schools in 15,000 districts. America continues to pay the lowest teacher salaries in the industrial world and is 14th among 16 nations in what it spends on a public school student`s education. Those who prefer the truth to rhetoric can read it in The Manufactured Crisis, the superb public education fact book by Dr. David Berliner.
America`s higher education system is the envy of the world-especially graduate level programs. It ranks third behind Canada and Finland in funding.
Fiction: Americans are being taxed to death.
Fact: It is un-American to like taxes but before packing for a better tax climate in another country, do a little research. Only Turkey has lower taxes as a percentage of gross domestic product!
The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development regularly publishes tax rates for all industrial nations. Among the 14 major nations, America`s total annual tax bill is next to dead last.
Here are the latest rankings, published in US News & World Report: Sweden 56.1%, Denmark 49.9%, Netherlands 46%, Norway 45.5%, Belgium 44.3%, France 43.8%, Luxembourg 42.4%, Austria 41%, New Zealand 39.4%, Germany 38.1%, Finland 38.1%, Italy 37.8%, Ireland 37.6%, United Kingdom 36.5%, Canada 35.3%, Portugal 35.1%, Spain $34.4%, Iceland 33.8%, Greece 33.2%, Switzerland 31.8%, Japan 30.6%, Australia 30.2%, United States 30.1%, Turkey 29%.
It is instructive to know where Uncle Sam spends federal taxes. These figures are based on an average annual middle income tax bill of $10,000.
Interest on the national debt costs $2,321, military salaries $700, military operations $908, weapons purchases $549, military research $346, intelligence $280, nuclear weapons $117, foreign aid $138, farm subsidies $70, education and training $542, federal pensions $658, food stamps $250, unemployment benefits $236, veterans benefits $329, federal law enforcement $64, earned income tax credit $152, Medicare $370, welfare $171, housing subsidies $140, conservation $50, rail and highways $252, disaster relief $32, pollution control $65, space flight $126, federal prisons $27, Congress $20, tax collections $50, White House $2, and the balance is scattered in various small accounts.
Those angry about taxes ought to direct their fire at the Reagan Administration which dramatically cut taxes on the wealthy under the ludicrous "Laffer Curve" theory that an economic bonanza would more than make up the lost revenue. It didn`t, and nearly a quarter of the average tax bill now goes for interest on a $5 trillion national debt.
Billions in subsidies abound for the affluent, yet Newt Gingrich`s Contract for America cut school lunches, a piddling $44 per average taxpayers per year, and public broadcasting, $2.60.
The income gap between rich and poor has widened dramatically, with the richest 20% having 49% of total pretax income while the poorest 20% have 4%.
Fiction: America is unilaterally disarming.
Fact: Long after the demise of the cold war, America continues to spends a disproportionate share of its resources on the world`s only remaining super power.
The fiscal 1997 federal budget of $1.274 trillion shows 22% for current military operations, 30% for past military operations (pensions, the military share of the debt, etc.) six per cent for physical resources, 14% for general government and 30% for human resources.
The budget breaks down like this: 22% of the budget, $286 billion for current military operations, including military personnel ($67 billion), retirement pay $13 billion, operation and maintenance $90 billion, housing $4 billion, procurement $46 billion, R&D $33 billion, construction $5 billion, DOE and nuclear $10 billion, 50% of NASA for $7 billion, Coast Guard $4 billion, and the balance for the CIA and international security assistance.
Past military: 30% of the budget or $377 billion, including $36 billion for military benefits and interest on the national debt directly attributable to previous military spending.
Human resources: 30% of the budget, or $381 billion for education, health, human services, HUD housing, food stamps and Labor Department.
General government, 12% or $156 billion for government, Justice, international affairs, Peace Corps, NASA civilians, and 20% interest on the national debt.
Physical resources: 12% or $74 billion for Agriculture, Commerce, Energy, HUD administration, community development, Interior, Transportation, environmental protection.
Fiction: America is engulfed in ever-increasing crime, mainly because the courts are soft on crime.
Fact: Violent crime is down by more than 15% since 1992, with juvenile crime dropping by 22.8% since 1993, according to the U.S. Justice Department. Courts have doubled the American prison population to nearly 1.6 million. By the end of 1995, one out of every 167 Americans was in jail, compared to one out of every 320 a decade earlier. Does that sound like a criminal justice system that is soft on crime? Russia is the only country that equals the American incarceration rate.
The crime rate has less to do with under-staffed, over-worked courts than the fact that 80% of those arrested for felonies are involved with drugs and alcohol at the time of their arrest. For every 22 persons who turned themselves in for treatment in 1995, there was only one treatment slot.
The real crime wave in the nation is the reduction of social services to the poorest of the poor under the guise of welfare reform. An American child is abused or neglected every 13 seconds, born to an unwed mother every 216 seconds, born into poverty every 30 seconds, born to a teen mother every 59 seconds, arrested for a violent crime very five minutes and killed by guns every two hours.
It isn`t fuzzy-headed liberals who think America is on the wrong track, squandering millions on a winless drug war and new prisons, it`s the nation`s wardens. A national survey showed that 85% of wardens say mandatory minimum sentences are fruitless and treatment programs are vital. Wardens call it "drive-by legislation", preferring that 57% of new corrections money go to prevention programs-especially shorter sentences for the non-violent.
The programs that work, according to the wardens surveyed by a U.S. Senate committee, include half-way houses and residential drug treatment programs, more community corrections and programs to provide better parenting skills to the poor. A whopping 93% of wardens call for more literacy, education and training programs-the exact opposite of the Contract for America agenda.
