David Swanson / World Beyond War – 2017-03-07 23:51:00
http://worldbeyondwar.org/model-city-resolution-resist-overcome/
ACTION ALERT: Urge Your Town to
Stand Up to Trump’s $58 Billion Military Buildup
David Swanson / World Beyond War
(March 7, 2017) — President Trump has proposed to move another $54 billion from “everything else” to “military spending,” pushing the military budget up to above 60% of discretionary spending for the first time since the (previous) Cold War.
We’ve drafted a sample resolution [see below] that you can ask your city, town, county, or state to pass. Feel free to modify it to suit you. The exact wording is not as important as the number of localities that quickly make this statement in support of funding environmental and human needs, not more militarism.
New Haven, Ct., has already passed a similar resolution and Charlottesville, Va. — thanks to a coalition formed by World Beyond War — has the support of a majority of its city council, which plans to vote on the resolution at its next meeting.
If you’d like help passing a similar resolution in your town, ask World Beyond War organizer Mary Dean to help you. If you haven’t formed a World Beyond War chapter yet, this may be an opportunity to do so.
If you’d like to help us coordinate this campaign across the United States, as a volunteer, working with Mary and the rest of us, please reply and let us know!
A Sample Local Resolution to Resist and Overcome
David Swanson / Let’s Try Democracy Now
Resolution Proposed for __________, __
Whereas President Trump has proposed to move $54 billion from human and environmental spending at home and abroad to military spending [i], bringing military spending to well over 60% of federal discretionary spending [ii],
Whereas part of helping alleviate the refugee crisis should be ending, not escalating, wars that create refugees [iii],
Whereas President Trump himself admits that the enormous military spending of the past 16 years has been disastrous and made us less safe, not safer [iv],
Whereas fractions of the proposed military budget could provide free, top-quality education from pre-school through college [v], end hunger and starvation on earth [vi], convert the US to clean energy [vii], provide clean drinking water everywhere it’s needed on the planet [viii], build fast trains between all major US cities [ix], and double non-military US foreign aid rather than cutting it [x],
Whereas even 121 retired US generals have written a letter opposing cutting foreign aid [xi],
Whereas a December 2014 Gallup poll of 65 nations found that the United States was far and away the country considered the largest threat to peace in the world [xii],
Whereas a United States responsible for providing clean drinking water, schools, medicine, and solar panels to others would be more secure and face far less hostility around the world,
Whereas our environmental and human needs are desperate and urgent,
Whereas the military is itself the greatest consumer of petroleum we have [xiii],
Whereas economists at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst have documented that military spending is an economic drain rather than a jobs program [xiv],
Be it therefore resolved that the ________ of _______, __, urges the United States Congress to move our tax dollars in exactly the opposite direction proposed by the President, from militarism to human and environmental needs.
SOURCES
[i] “Trump to Seek $54 Billion Increase in Military Spending,” The New York Times, February 27, 2017.
[ii] This does not include another 6% for the discretionary portion of veterans’ care. For a breakdown of discretionary spending in the 2015 budget from the National Priorities Project, see
https://www.nationalpriorities.org/campaigns/military-spending-united-states
[iii] “43 Million People Kicked Out of Their Homes,” World Beyond War,
http://worldbeyondwar.org/43-million-people-kicked-homes /
“Europe’s Refugee Crisis Was Made in America,†The Nation.
[iv] On February 27, 2017, Trump said, “Almost 17 years of fighting in the Middle East . . . $6 trillion we’ve spent in the Middle East . . . and we’re nowhere, actually if you think about it we’re less than nowhere, the Middle East is far worse than it was 16, 17 years ago, there’s not even a contest . . . we have a hornet’s nest . . . .”
[v] “Free College: We Can Afford It,” The Washington Post, May 1, 2012,
[vi] “The World Only Needs 30 Billion Dollars a Year to Eradicate the Scourge of Hunger,” Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.
[vii] “Clean Energy Transition Is A $25 Trillion Free Lunch,” Clean Technica,
See also: http://www.solutionaryrail.org
[viii] “Clean Water for a Healthy World,” UN Environment Program.
[ix] “Cost of High Speed Rail in China One Third Lower than in Other Countries,” The World Bank
[x] Non-military US foreign aid is approximately $25 billion, meaning that President Trump would need to cut it by over 200% to find the $54 billion he proposes to add to military spending
[xi] Letter to Congressional leaders, February 27, 2017,
[xii] See
http://www.wingia.com/en/services/about_the_end_of_year_survey/global_results/7/33
[xiii] “Fight Climate Change, Not Wars,” Naomi Klein.
[xiv] “The US Employment Effects of Military and Domestic Spending Priorities: 2011 Update,” Political Economy Research Institute.
