A very good read.

[Occhidiangela]

I don't think the Illuminati will be very happy with your choice!:P

Then they are welcome to get the hell off of my money. (One Dollar Bill)

Occhi

[kandrathe]

Next time I blame some problems with public transport on Bush, please correct me....but I don't believe that was the case. I'm not a liberal as well. I don't know what liberal means in you country, but in my country they are rich people's party. ... biking stuff ...
but seriously, you do know where your tax money is going or not? Do you honestly believe the US is just giving those billions to Iraq to do something nice with it? ...

Hmmm, if you base it on the politicians, the rich peoples parties in the US are the Democrats and the Republicans... In the US if you base it on who the poor vote for, then it would be complicated... Urban poor would likely be democrats, but in rural areas it would depend on whether they were more beholden to bible thumping, the National Rifle Association or the the Farmer/Labor unions. In the US, Eppie, I believe you would want to belong to the Green Party, or another 3rd party more aligned with socialistic tendencies but you would probably vote Democratic to have a chance of defeating Bush.

I would guess I am in that small minority of Americans who do know where the tax money is going.
Mandatory Spending
21% go to pay Social Security recipients (most every retired person > 65)
12% for Medicare (medical help for older people)
8% for Medicaid (mdeical help for poorer people)
13% for other mandatory aid for poor or old people

Yup, that's 54% of $844 billion dollars going to old and poor (in US standards) people.

Add in 7% for debt service to Mandatory Spending,
20% Defense Discretionary spending to defend the US from the world and the world from itself,
leaving 19% for everything else...

Iraq will rebuild itself with or without US billions. But, rest assured the billions will disappear from the US coffers, as will Iraqi oil revenue to go somewhere. So, at least we will have something in common with the everyday Iraqi, that we are both getting screwed by the same government. I was thinking that it might be cheaper for the US to just spend its defense money hiring it's own counter-insurgents, but then I realized we already do that too. My bad.