So I was laying (lying, not sure) in bed thinking about teachers’ salary instead of what normal people think of like “Oh I wonder what I’ll do tomorrow?” or “I love my girlfriend, Jan Levinson Gould”. I thought, “Where could we get money to raise teacher salary without raising taxes?” And then it hit me, we could have gotten so much out of the money we have spent in Iraq. Let’s face it, we all know George Bush is a retard and prides his strong will as a quality befitting a great leader instead of just admitting he’s stubborn. According to estimates from the Congressional Budget Office, the total cost of the Iraq war to date is $477,702,329,915. Also, don’t forget an estimated 4,000 U.S. soldiers killed, 60,000 wounded, 700,000 Iraqis killed, and 4 million displaced. All of this and we have done nothing but give radical fundamentalists another reason to hate us. What George Bush doesn’t realize is that you can’t defeat an idea with the military. Sure, we are fighting the so-called terrorists all over the world and especially in Iraq but what we are really fighting is an ideology. I could go on for pages about the Iraq war which I disagreed with from the start. The day we invaded I knew it was a bad idea. You can believe me if you want or don’t, but when the national mainstream media started reporting that they spotted Iraqis in chemical suits about to use chemical weapons the student teacher of my 10th grade American History class was eating that shit up. This was a man right out of college that was supposed to think critically and not just believe what Fox News reports.

So yes, 477 billion dollars is quite a bit of money, and it’ll probably be up to 700 billion before we end up leaving Iraq and all of the benefits we then have to shell out to our veterans will put the total cost of this pointless conflict to well over 1 trillion dollars. I’m not sure many of us could even comprehend what 1 trillion of anything would look like. This is more than enough money to put in that mandatory $40,000 minimum starting teacher salary that I think is appropriate. In fact, I think teachers and the entire education department deserves more than that. I think a secondary teacher should start at $50,000 if you factor in applicable benefits.

“Oh George, you are so silly. You want to raise the minimum starting teacher salary to $50,000 because you are going to be a teacher in a few short years.” No, you are wrong, believe it or not. Now here me out on this. I think the solution to so many problems in this country could be solved by a highly educated society. Higher education, and better quality education leads to decreased violent crimes and intolerance. There are so many teachers out there that bust their ass for way less than what a lawyer makes and I believe teachers make the biggest impact in our society. We are on the front line of learning. The things we tell students stay with them and make in impact. Sure there are bad teachers out there, but there are also tons of unqualified people floating around in other professions that got in because of nepotism or Affirmative Action. Paying teachers more makes them feel like they actually matter and makes them strive to do better, at least that is how I see it. A caring and motivating teacher is the person who drives an aspiring student to become a doctor or a lawyer in the first place.

There would be ways of increasing the minimum teacher salary to $50,000 without burden on taxpayers via tax hikes. I would propose an immediate withdrawal from Iraq. When I say immediate, I mean we cut and run. I honestly don’t give a fuck. Terrorists, you win because we would never win anyway. They can fucking have the country. There is also a multitude of government programs out there that are inefficient, bloated, and exploited. Social Security should just be terminated or privatized right now, workers compensation, welfare, and food stamp programs can all be streamlined. Implementation of the fair tax system would be able to tax illegal activities such as drugs, prostitution, and underground gambling. Fair tax talk is for another entry but that would help to make things more efficient to funnel excess money from useless programs into the only government program that ever worked in this country, education.