Ronald Ray Gun

Feb 12, 2010

I don't tend to talk about politics, but there's a few things that have been on my mind.  A lot of people are complaining about the way our government is spending money.  Mainly the bailouts, and programs to get people back to work.  When talking about recessions the last big one was back in 1983.  That was the last year that so many people were out of work. 

So this is where it gets interesting.  What does our government spend money on?  On March 23, 1983 President Ronald Reagan created the Stategic Defense Initiative, also known as the Star Wars project.  This system (which we had all ready, wink, wink) would shoot ballistic nuclear missiles out of the air via laser beams delievered from the ground or space.  This news sent shockwaves around the world.  Many people believed that Reagan was escalating nuclear war with the U.S.S.R. 

So Congress says this is a good idea, and funds the project.  Here's where it starts to get funny.  It's so secret that the funds we sent to the program were secret.  To this day we still don't know how much money was spent to fund Star Wars, but it is estimated to be above 100 billion.  Note:  This is 100 billion in the 1980's. 

The Soviet Union meanwhile starts building all sorts of weapons.  Just huge storerooms filled with AK-47's, grenades, and rocket lanchers, as well as the big stuff like tanks, helicopters, and planes.  True fact.  The Soviets had 6 times as many tanks as the rest of the world at one time.  Note:  If you have ever seen the movie "Lord of War" it makes reference to the fact that the Soviets had more weapons stockpiled than they knew what to do with.

It should also be noted that the Soviets went through a number of leaders at this time.  In 1982 Brezhnev died.  Andropov took over, and promply died in 1984.  Chernenko lasted just over a year, and died in 1985.  That's when Gorbachev took over.  The spending was getting out of hand, and Gorbachev tried to strengthen the Soviet Union by pulling out of the smaller countries that they controled such as Eastern Germany.  But then as they kept pulling back, democracy kept rolling and the days of the communist Soviet Union were over.

But about that Star Wars program.  After the U.S.S.R. collapsed it was revealed that the Star Wars program never existed.  That's right.  Never had it, never will.  So here is the funny question, where did all that money go?  Some of that money did go to fund research into seeing if the Star Wars program was possible, but most of it was sent to fund off budget "Black Ops" programs.  Think of the national debt.  We are still paying off that Star Wars program to this day.  And let's be honest.  We are not out of the woods as far as the debt buildup goes.

So when people complain about the government spending money on the bailouts (although they are actually loans,) think about this.  You at least know where that money is going.  They are watching where that money is traveling.  And at least they are not spending 100 billion on a program that doesn't even exist.


Angela Flowers As a Libertarian without a party [Libertarian; I don't like Republicans because they like less government but are RIDICULOUSLY interested in a woman's womb or whether you're having OMG TEH BUTTSECKS; I don't like Democrats because you can't hug every tree and you can't throw money at every tree to fix its problems; and most other Libertarians are absolute wing-nuts], I wholeheartedly endorse this message.  :)