maybe this is why i use soy margerine INSTEAD of butter

Less Butter, More Guns
[from the March 6, 2006 issue]
The budget is an annual statement of national priorities and in even-numbered years also serves as a campaign platform for the party in power. This President's new spending priorities are grotesque--a cruel distortion of what matters to Americans--and riddled with deceptions. For the campaign, however, Bush's slogan is surprisingly frank: "Cut the butter, give us more guns." Terror is his theme, as usual. But instead of pretending, as he has in the past, that the war will be painless on the home front, Bush now asks people to choose between their fears and their hopes. That's a far riskier gamble, and one he just might lose.
Bush's budget is littered with phony claims and fanciful projections, but it does clearly frame a potentially decisive debate: Do Americans acquiesce to the "long war" envisioned by Pentagon planners? Or will Congress at last choke on the folly and open-ended costs of this new cold war? Bush is determined to convert America into a permanent war economy. If we reject his priorities we can perhaps turn back a national disaster before it's too late.
While Bush slashes or freezes domestic programs like healthcare and education, his Pentagon budget increases by 7 percent, to $439 billion, 45 percent greater than when he took office five years ago. And the $439 billion is only part of the increased largesse for the military-security complex; another $33 billion goes to the ill-managed homeland security agencies. That still doesn't count the war itself--another $70 billion or more.
Meanwhile, belt-tightening applies only at home--141 domestic programs either killed or cut. Education loses $2.1 billion, from student loans to vocational training. Healthcare takes a substantial hit, which means hospitals and nursing homes lose Medicare financing or communities lose disease prevention. Agriculture gets less for conservation. Federal home-heating aid ignores rising oil prices. The number of hungry Americans, rising at about 10 percent a year, is now 38 million, but Bush takes a whack at food assistance too. ...........