University of Maryland reported that Americans, on average, believed that foreign aid accounts for 20 percent of the federal budget, roughly twenty-four times the actual figure.
— The End of Poverty by Jeffrey Sachs
Category: 45 CR – Justice not charity
International suffering – Thinking allowed
Giles Fraser: ‘Economic justice is the number one moral issue in the Bible’
He characterises it as “frustratingly democratic” because when he has said to protesters “take me to your leader”, there has turned out to be no leader. And yet, as he remarks, the advantage of this is obvious: “You have to engage with the issues.”
Source : The guardian
Stop the Public University Tuition Spiral
Students of the University of California at Berkeley may pay a proposed $23,000 in tuition by the 2015-2016 school year, up from $11,160 this year (2011) that in turn is up from $2,716 in the academic year 2001-2002. In short, tuition for resident undergraduates has more than quadrupled in ten years.
Source : Common dreams
Payroll Tax Cut Raises Worries about Social Security’s Future Funding
The payroll tax cut changes that. Instead being a protected program with its own stream of funding, Social Security, by taking money from general revenue, becomes more akin to other government initiatives such as Pentagon spending or clean-air regulation — programs that rely on income taxes and political jockeying for support.
Source : Common dreams
Collected Reading 