Government’s Expenditures during the Cold War

Even though the chilliness contend era is a distant memory, encased in glass everlastingly like some museum piece, our political sympathies is still spending as if the Soviet Union was in its original. If the arms race is a forgotten memory, accordingly why is the phalanx still spending 86% of what it was spending during the Cold War. Its not that us Ameri plunders do not hope a solid military, we just believe that our military is wasting one thousand thousands of dollars at the disbursal of our childrens knowledge and well macrocosm.50 years ago our unpolished, and the consummate world was in disparate leadiness of a strong U.S. military. We blow up our military budget, and gave the government and private businesses an enormous appetite. Without a major terror to the United States since the collapse of the Soviet Union, our government seems to be in rival with itself. 50 years ago we sent tons and tons of parade overseas to fight in a foreign land, while we man age private businesses up with the manufacturing of military equipment.The need for such(prenominal) products and the need for an over-healthy military in every last(predicate)owance is long gone. While we sunk billions after billions of taxpayers capital on wars that we were boisterously proud to spend (it gave us all the prestige we could ever ask for), our Allies were investing in their childrens education and well being. The result now is that while we dumbfound the to the highest degree elite military capabilities, our childrens educational level is extremely under developed. European and Japanese children significantly outperform American children in math and high-level reading.This should not be too surprising, our children be studying history books that are from a cristal ago. This creates difficult obstacles for our children to keep up on genuine politics and other global events. Also the over crowding of classrooms fudges it extremely difficult for your child to get that personalized learning which may congeal his or her ability to learn at all.Every child learns at a different rate and possibly in different ways, this brings it approximately impossible for teachers to tap into every childs full learning potential. If your child needs that extra, personalized attention, but is not defined as handicapped their specific learning needs will most credibly be overlooked and that may be the beginning of your childs inability to learn. According to a study done by the secern of Tennessee, reducing classroom surface in early grades (K-3rd) can remedy a childs performance even after being placed back into their regular sized class.Another major conundrum hindering our childrens education is the fact that the teachers with the priceless responsibility of ontogenesis our childs mind are absolutely underpaid. Teachers barely make an honest living and are often subliminal role models to our late students. Although there are countless excepti onally dedicated teachers in America, a significantly higher salary would ensure the quality of almost all teachers. Remember what we were taught about incentives at a young age, the carrot in front of the rabbit, well that would definitely apply for these individuals we need to count on everyday.So, where is all of the money red ink to come from to improve our childrens education, well, recover our friend with that uncontrollable appetite? During the Cold Wars prime the U.S. was spending $325 billion a year. And today, with the Cold War boxed up and put on a shelf, the military is still spending $290 billion a year (NCR,1999).This is an alarming figure that we are spending on a military without any outside threat to contend with, in fact it seems to be their only real mission is to play handmaiden to the United Nations, fighting little skirmishes in countries that dont want our help. One would be hopeful that since we are in an era of rest time that we could enjoy peace dividen ds. However, the military and those private sector businesses that created such an enormous appetite refuse to exercise a Post-Cold War diet. possibly we need to e-mail the pentagon, they might be reading our childrens decade old history books, in that case they wouldnt know that the Berlin jetty is down and the Soviet Union has collapsed.Another astonishing fact is that our country has become the worlds largest arms dealer, selling to almost any country with the money to do business. And if they cant afford them, our government will put them on a payment plan, acting more like a scene right out of The Godfather. Is this our government, or is this jade Corleone, striking deals with some pretty shady characters. One cant help wondering where all of this cold hard cash is going from these deals.It is no mystery that our government budgets are in desperate need of reform, well, there are active groups lobbying to change the spending habits of our government. One of the most effecti ve of these groups is the Business Leaders for reasonable Priorities, which is comprised of influential individuals like Ben Cohen, cofounder of Ben & Jerrys and former assistant secretary of state, Lawrence Korb, along with a cabinet of ex-military and braggart(a) business leaders. The group is most certainly not an anti-military faction, however they are dedicated to refocusing the militarys useless spending (NCR, 1999). They are not opposed to our military having the best equipment possible, that is if someone were to donate it to them. If the finality is for the military to have a great new ship, or for our children to have a better education, of course the military is going to have to make receivable.Currently the federal government only participates in 7% of the living for our schools, while the state and the local community split the rest. This is an raises enormous concerns due to the fact that poorer communities are at a significant disadvantage. Some communities can s pend up to five times as much as less fortunate ones (NATIONAL PTA, 1996).To achieve these goals for a better future for our kids and bring forward more, our country, we need to make education our biggest priority. Adding up the militarys elevated $290 billion a year, and comparing it to whats left over for all other spending, including education, a meager $246 billion (NCR, 1999). This is an insult to our childrens increase as growing intellectuals. 6% of the entire budget is allocated for our childrens education, this states the full-strength fact that their education is not important. The money is truly there, we simply need to redirect it and our governments priorities. Like stated by Business Leaders for Sensible Priorities, The winners and losers are not going to be determined by the size of their gunboats, but by the level of their childrens level of education.