In Aaron Rubin's world, how much is an Oreo cookie worth?
Oh, about $10 billion.
Rubin and his "OreoMobile" are traveling around the country – including a visit at USC Aiken Tuesday – using giant plastic Oreo cookies to talk about the need for spending priorities in the federal budget.
A small group of USCA faculty, staff and students gathered to watch Rubin's graphic presentation as he stacked the cookies in different areas of federal spending.
"The federal budget is $1 trillion, and nobody can figure out what that means," he said. "But the Pentagon is getting more than half of the discretionary spending, while education, children's health care and energy independence are getting a fraction of that."
Rubin's traveling project is sponsored by Business Leaders for Sensible Priorities – a nonprofit founded by Ben Cohen, a co-founder of Ben and Jerry's ice cream.
The members include business people, former military officers and religious leaders. According to the organization's website, the campaign intends "to create a political culture, grounded in spiritual and human values, that will not tolerate wasting billions of dollars on nuclear weapons, Star Wars or other outmoded weapons."
Those weapons are costing taxpayers about $60 billion, said Rubin – funds that could be spent on energy alternatives, K-12 education and insurance for nine million children currently without it.
Dr. Bob Botsch, a USCA political science professor, happened to walk in the campus quadrangle and stopped by to hear the presentation. Overall, he doesn't think the message will sell as well in the South. Much of Aiken County, he said, is tied up in the nuclear side of national defense.
"But policymakers or those who study it are always asking about defense, about how much is enough in the number of nuclear weapons," Botsch said. "Certainly we have far more than we need for deterrence by anybody's definition. (Former Defense Secretary) Robert McNamara said 400 to 500 weapons were enough, but we have thousands and a lot are outdated."
After hearing about the program, sociology professor Dr. Christine Wernet invited her students in a social stratification class to watch the presentation. The class has been looking at issues of poverty and has done service-learning visits to community agencies that work with low-income families and children.
"I'm surprised my students are more open to this information than you might think," Wernet said. "I don't think he (Rubin) is arguing against a strong military. But maybe we should think about where money is going, especially with nine million children without health care."
