If you're not mad right now, you're about to be.
As you know yesterday the US government bailed-out a private insurance company, AIG, 85 billion dollars. Despite McCain's flip-flop and Sarah Palin being "disappointed" by the bailout, this was an extremely vital and necessary move for the state of the world's economy. Yet, we should have never let it come to this, and it's important to consider what this failure could have meant for other crucial programs. To put this in perspective, I thought I would compile a list of government programs and how much each gets per year. Let me remind you that AIG got this bailout in one day. One day, $85,000,000,000. A totally preventable $85,000,000.
Let the games begin...
Round 1: Private Insurance Company vs. Children's Healthcare.
Last year George Bush vetoed an expansion of the SCHIP program. He said it was "too expensive." How much funding did the children's health insurance program receive in 2008? 5.04 billion dollars. That's right, AIG got almost 16 times more money in one day than our children's health program got all year. In fact, AIG got more yesterday than the entire Health and Human Services Budget. Incredible.
Round 2: Private Insurance Company vs. Education.
Education, the backbone to a well-functioning society, including math and sciences, Reading First, No Child Left Behind, Pell Grants, and much more, has a budget this year of around $62,000,000,000. AIG wins in a landslide. Wow.
Round 3: Private Insurance Company vs. Space.
NASA gets mixed reviews as to how important it is. No doubt, it's a big program, but it's not that big. This year, the entire budget for NASA is $17,318,000,000 or roughly a quarter of the size of the one day bailout of AIG. Space loses in a landslide.
Round 4: Private Insurance Company vs. Agriculture, Interior, Treasury, Labor, and Transportation... Combined.
So believe it or not, but yesterday AIG got more money from the federal government than all the money spent on farming, food safety, natural resources, hunger, aviation, highways, railroads, public transit, tax collection, money printing, national parks, Indian affairs, land management, occupational safety, and unemployment benefits. The total budget for all of these departments this year is roughly 65.6 billion dollars. AIG wins again. Amazing.
Round 5: Private Insurance Company vs. Homeland Security, Department of Justice, and Department of Energy... Combined.
So here we have Homeland Security (this is the department responsible for everything from disaster relief to immigration control), Department of Justice (responsible for FBI, DEA, ATF, etc.), and the Department of Energy (responsible for nuclear waste control - no biggie). So what's the total budget for Homeland Security in 2008? $43,212,000,000. And Department of Justice? $24,121,000,000. And how about Energy? $23,043,000,000. All of this for a grand total of $90,376,000,000. It looks like three massive US federal departments wins... barely.
Bonus Round: Private Insurance Company vs. Eliminating Global Hunger, Reproductive Healthcare Rights for All Women in the World, Clean Water for Everyone in the World, Universal Literacy.
The BBC reported in 2004 that all we needed to achieve the above global goals was an additional push of around 44 billion dollars. That is almost half of what AIG got yesterday. So there you have it, AIG's bailout could have meant a world without hunger, illiteracy, contaminated water, and reproductive injustice. Oh well. Maybe next year...
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Shocking ehh? No doubt, putting this money into perspective sheds light on the importance of having leaders who are competent and lobbyist-free. $80,000,000,000. Perhaps Obama himself summed this up best when he said that this bailout is
"a stark reminder of the failures of crony capitalism and an economic philosophy that sees any regulation at all as unwise and unnecessary."
Incredible. Just think of what we could have done with this money...