Case in Point Why Our Country Is Screwed Up

I've been fomenting a rant on how incredibly ridiculous our country is that we cannot afford universal education and health care. I mean for gosh sakes Sweden? Norway? Denmark? Canada? Britain? Japan? Germany? France? South Korea? Singapore? They are not as wealthy as the U.S. GNP per capita, not even close. Yet they seem to manage covering many more social benefits for their population than the U.S. Yes, I could actually research this issue, talk about macroeconomics and states' rights and tax models and corporate welfare and deficits all that boring stuff.

I just want to know WHERE IS ALL THE MONEY GOING? Our economy is huge! Gazillions of dollars are changing hands! Why is this country so inefficient or unfair or just generally fucked up that we can't make sure that all schools have Internet and computer labs, and noone has to worry about getting hit by a bus and wracking up huge medical bills, and even poor kids can go to college without having to work 3 jobs? I ask you -- where is the money?

And then today I happened to notice a new site just opened up called Walmart Watch, which is dedicated to monitoring Wal-Mart's abuses and its drain on U.S. taxpayers. "The Wal-Mart Tax" is a brief entry that estimates Wal-Mart COSTS taxpayers at least $1.5 billion per year in assistance to employees who are undercovered by Wal-Mart. And that's just the Federal cost.

Maybe this is where the missing money is. How many tax breaks does Wal-Mart get? Federal? State? Local? And on top of that, Wal-Mart does not even sustain its own employees. So rather than boosting the local economy, it drains it.