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 WASHINGTON — Americans spent as much on ”plastic Santa Clauses and
tinsel" and other holiday niceties last Christmas season as they
do on the US military for a year, the Army’s top general said yesterday.
Responding to complaints about defense spending, General Peter Schoomaker,
the Army chief of staff, told reporters: ”I just don’t understand . .
. what’s the problem?"
”Here’s what is amazing to me . . . What do you think we spent on plastic
Santa Clauses and tinsel and all this stuff for Christmas last year?" Schoomaker
asked during a meeting with reporters. ”The answer is $438.5 billion,
roughly equivalent to the defense budget."
from the Boston Globe
Well, when you put it that way….Although running the numbers,
that works out to $1,644 worth of plastic Santas, tinsel and strings
of blinking lights
for every man, woman and child in the country.- $6,578 for a family
of four.
Typical government accounting; they probably started with the amount
the FIRST family spent on
Christmas decorations and multiplied that by the population of the
United States….
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