------------------------------------------------------------------ "Right now, among industrialized nations, Norway leads with 1.12% of its GNP as expenditures for non-military foreign aid; Ireland and the U.S. are tied for last at 0.2% GNP" [Bill Bridge, Population Committee, EarthRight Institute, in Chicken Little Chronicle #11 [EarthRight Institute, Gates-Briggs Building, Room 322, White River Junction, VT 05001]] ------------------------------------------------------------------ "The U.S. ratio of school age children per teacher (23 to 1) is worse than 18 other counties including Libya, East Germany, Lebanon, and Cuba "Although the U.S. ranks 2nd in the world in per capita gross national product, the country ranks 19th in the world in infant mortality rate, and 29th in low birth-weight babies. Our child poverty rate is higher than Switzerland, Sweden, Norway, West Germany, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Australia. The U.S. in not among the 61 nations that provide health insurance or basic medical coverage to all parents and their dependents, nor is it among the 63 nations that provide a family allowance to working parents." *****NOTE ON ARCHIVE-ACCESS TO HEALTH CARE FILE****** [From: _Children of Crisis_, Sandy Carter, _Z Magazine_, January 1991] ------------------------------------------------------------------ "Prior to the Gulf crisis, the U.S. imported 290 million barrels of oil a year from Iraq and Kuwait. Raising auto-efficiency standards by a measly 2.75 mpg, says the Silocon Valley Toxics Coalition, could save the U.S. the same 290 million barrels...." Source: In These Times, Dec. 12-18, 1990, page 6. ------------------------------------------------------------------ Another stat to look up: US rank in % of population to vote who are eligible ------------------------------------------------------------------ From The Nation, date unknown, but page 592 so only the year matters, the the year is 1990 or 1989, we can deduce: A Kinder, Gentler Health Policy If George Bush really wants a kinder and gentler nation he should heed a report on Medicare and Medicaid put out by the House Select Committee on Aging, which documents the Reagan assault on those two programs. Between 1981 and 1987, Medicare funding was cut by $35.9 billion. But the "most telling part" of the Reagan legacy, the report says, "is seen in the percentage of America's poor covered by Medicaid as it dropped substantially from an already too low 53 percent in 1979 to closer to 40 percent currently." The administration "should have been pushing for Medicaid coverage for 100 percent of poor people, not cutting back in already woefully inadequate protection," says Representative Edward Roybal, who chairs the committee. ################################################################## ... ... [see lib/resources/econ.4] According to the Center for Defense Information, military spending could easily be reduced by $100 billion per year, "without in any way affecting security" (quote may be ITT's paraphrase, not CDI's --HB) Above are from: In These Times 3/28-4/3, 1990 ------------------------------------------------------------------ Jobs with Peace (JWP) Campaign, 76 SummerSt., Boston, Mass. 02110 I recently came across a Vermont American Friends Service Committee pamphlet which stated that "military related spending as a share of the federal tax dollar, ahs increased from 46% in Fiscal Years (FY) 1980 to 56% in FT 1987" and that National defense is a legitimate need but some analysts say that as little as 13% of the military budget does for direct defense of the United States (for coastal defense and retaliatory nuclear forces). Much spending goes for other purposes: nuclear and conventional competition with Soviet Union and Third world military intervention. We must not let a certain kind of patriotic shouting drown out a needed debate on these issues which figures are attributed to calculations by the Jobs with Peace (JWP) Campaign. "For a research kit, write: [above address]" ################################################################## "Among industrial countries only South Africa condemns and executes more people per capita than the United States." Randolph N. Stone Public Defender of Cook County [Op-Ed, Chicago Tribune, 2/20/89, p.10, letter to the editor] ################################################################## From: "Lawrence K. Kolodney" From the New York Times, 1/7/91, p. A14: ------------------------------------------------------------------ SUMMARY: More than 1,000,000 in prison in US ======================================== People in jail per 100,000: (1) U.S.: 426 (2) South Africa: 333 (3) Soviet Union: 268 (*) Europe: 35 to 120 (*) Asia: 21 to 140 In rate, U.S. has 28% more than South Africa; 59% more than Soviets in prisons. ======================================== Black males in prison per 100,000: United States: 3,109 South Africa: 729 ======================================== Since 1980, crime rate down 3.5%; number in prison up 100% (doubled) In 1980, U.S. ranked third; due to mandatory minimum sentences, restricted parole eligibility, and "reliying more on imprisonment and less on alternatives" according to the report. ------------------------------------------------------------------ U.S. Leads World in Imprisonment WASHINGTON, Jan. 6 (AP) - With more than one million people behind bars, the United States imprisons a larger share of its population than any other nation, a private research organization has reported. [..] The report said its figures on jail inmates are as of June 30, 1989, and on prison inmates as of Dec. 31, 1989. The figures are from the Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Statistics. [..] Marc Mauer, assistant director of the Sentencing Project and author of the report said it showed that "the same policies which have helped make us the world leader in incarceration have clearly failed to make us a safe nation. Commenting on the report, Rep. John Conyers Jr., the Michigan Democrat who is chairman of the House government Operations Committee, said: "We've got to stop jailing and start rehabilitating. We can build all the jails we think we need and slam the doors down on thousands of people, but is won't make a bit of difference until we address the fundamental causes of crime." [...] The Sentencing Project acknowledged that the crime rate in the United States is higher than in many other countries. The nation's murder rate is at least seven times higher than in most European countries. There were six times as many robberies and three times as many rapes in the United States as in former West Germany. The report said the overall crime rate in the United States has fallen 3.5 percent since 1980, while the nation's prison population doubled. The proportion of criminals sentenced to prison jumped 54 percent from 1980 to 1987, the report said. In 1980, the rate was 196 offenders imprisoned for every 1,000 arrests for serious crimes. The 1987 rate was 301 per 100,000. Drug-related crime is the biggest cause of the increase in prison population, the report said, and helps explain the disproportionately high rate of black male incarceration. Thirty-eight percent of the people arrested on drug charges in 1988 were black, up form 30 percent in 1984. ################################################################## "According to UNESCO, the U.S. ranks 49th among 156 United Nations member countries in its rate of literacy, and this current ranking reflects a drop of 18 places since 1950" "As reported in the 1986 publication entitled Making Literacy Programs Work: A Practical Guide for Correctional Educators (for the U.S. Department of Justice, National Institute of Corrections), one-half of all adults in federal and state correctional facilities cannot read or write at all. Only about one-third of those in prison have completed high school." Literacy Volunteers of America, Inc. 5795 Wildewaters Parkway, Syracuse, NY 13214 (315)445-8000 ################################################################## Following is a selection from "Twenty-Four Answers To Raise Questions About U.S. Energy Policy," released by Greenpeace News: - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - U.S. proportion of world's cars: 35% U.S. proportion of world's population: 5% - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - cost to build a mile of urban highway: $100 million; cost to build a mile of light rail mass transit:$ 15 million; change in federal funding for mass transit from 1981 to 1989: -50% reduction in Department of Energy budget for renewable energy between 1981 and 1989: 90% - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - [Excerpted from "Blood is Thicker than Oil;" see the file "briefs"; originally published: In These Times, Sept. 19-25, 1990] ##################################################################