CREDO Action & Alex Morash and Craig Harrington / MediaMatters.org – 2017-03-18 01:08:27
https://act.credoaction.com/sign/trump_war_profiteers?t=1&akid=22176.8309119.xLGqmj
ACTION ALERT: Cut Wasteful Military Spending
CREDO Action
Petition to Congressional Democratic Leaders:
“Oppose Trump’s handout to war profiteers by increasing military spending, and offer a clear alternative to instead invest in American health, prosperity and security while cutting wasteful military spending.”
Half of the federal budget already goes to weapons of war and the military-industrial complex — and now, Trump wants to increase spending on war profiteers by a full 10 percent. (1)
Yet in their statements opposing the Trump budget, neither Minority Leader Rep. Nancy Pelosi nor Sen. Chuck Schumer mentioned Trump’s proposal to radically expand military spending. (2,3)
If Democratic leaders think they can resist Trump’s cuts without mentioning the source of the problem, they are badly wrong. To offer a true alternative to Trump, Democrats must get out from under the thumb of war profiteers and demand a cut to wasteful military spending.
Tell Democratic leaders: Resist Trump’s handout to war profiteers.
We do not have a spending problem. We have a wasteful military spending problem. Safety net programs like Social Security have their own sources of funding and can be shored up for decades with small fixes and no benefit cuts. The rest of the federal budget, so-called “discretionary” spending, is split between wasteful military spending and domestic priorities. (4)
Trump’s budget proposed increasing wasteful military spending by 10 percent, or $54 billion. Here’s why this is a horrible idea:
• We will be less safe. More than 120 generals wrote a letter opposing cuts to the State Department and international aid that would make future wars and conflict more likely. As Trump’s own Secretary of Defense James Mattis once argued, “if you don’t fully fund the State Department, then I need to buy more ammunition.” (5)
• Americans disapprove of it. A recent poll found that 58 percent of Americans oppose the Trump plan to increase wasteful military spending. Democrats afraid of their own shadows must realize that redirecting some military spending to higher priorities is a political winner. (6)
• Helps war profiteers, not everyday Americans. Some military families need food stamps to survive. American children face crowded, crumbling schools. Our infrastructure is falling apart. Meanwhile, under the influence of war profiteer lobbyists, Congress repeatedly funds weapon systems that even the military says it does not want. (7,8)
Trump and his Republican backers are not serious about reducing wasteful spending, they are simply declaring war on the poor as an excuse to pass massive tax breaks for their wealthy campaign donors and corporate pals.
Tell Democratic leaders: Resist Trump’s handout to war profiteers. Click here to sign the petition.
The United States spends more on the military than the next seven countries combined, while priorities that make America safer and more prosperous — like education, health, transportation, housing, veterans’ benefits, diplomacy and dozens of others — must compete for the remaining scraps.9
Redirecting war-profiteer handouts to investments that make us safer and more prosperous long term is both common sense and has popular support. Democrats cannot offer a true alternative to Trump if they refuse to talk about wasteful military spending. It’s up to us to drive that point home before it is too late.
Tell Democratic leaders: Resist Trump’s handout to war profiteers.
Thank you for speaking out.
NOTES
1 Alex Morash and Craig Harrington, “Economists And Experts Hammer Trump’s Plan To Increase Military Spending At Expense Of Nearly Everything Else,” Media Matters, Feb. 28, 2017.
2 Rep. Nancy Pelosi, “Pelosi Statement on Trump 2018 Budget Blueprint,” Feb. 27, 2017.
3 Naomi Jugada, “Schumer: Trump budget would benefit wealthy over middle class,” The Hill, Feb. 27, 2017.
4 Charles Osterndorf, “Bernie Sanders is right—America spends too much money on its military,” The Daily Dot, Aug. 26, 2015.
5 Morash and Harrington, “Economists And Experts Hammer Trump’s Plan To Increase Military Spending At Expense Of Nearly Everything Else.”
6 Curt Mills, “Poll: Americans Oppose Defense Budget Increases,” US News & World Report, March 8, 2017.
7 Krissy Clark, “Military families turn to food stamps,” Marketplace, May 25, 2015.
8 William Hartung, “Why Can’t We Rein In This Ridiculous Military Spending?” Mother Jones, Oct. 30, 2016.
9 Morash and Harrington, “Economists And Experts Hammer Trump’s Plan To Increase Military Spending At Expense Of Nearly Everything Else.”
Economists And Experts Hammer Trump’s Plan To Increase Military Spending At Expense Of Nearly Everything Else
Alex Morash and Craig Harrington / MediaMatters.org
(February 28, 2017) — President Donald Trump’s plan to beef up the defense budget by an additional $54 billion at the expense of civilian domestic spending, which he will unveil tonight before a joint session of Congress, has been derided by economists and experts for being “wholly unrealistic” and “voodoo” economics.
Bloomberg reported on February 26, that Trump’s first budget proposal would call for a $54 billion — more than 9 percent — increase in defense spending to be paid for with reductions to discretionary domestic spending, which Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) described as the budgetary equivalent of taking “a meat ax to programs that benefit the middle-class.”
White House press secretary Sean Spicer confirmed reports of the president’s budget priorities in a February 27 press briefing, adding that Trump would discuss his budget plan in more detail during his February 28 address to Congress.
Economists and experts have hammered Trump for months for proposing dramatic and seemingly unnecessary increases in defense spending. An October 19 article in New York magazine described Trump’s promises of new defense expenditures as “a random grab bag of military goodies, untethered to any coherent argument” because he lacked any vision or purpose for increasing funding to the military.
According to figures compiled by the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, American defense spending already eclipses the military spending of the next seven countries combined:
The reception for Trump’s new budget outline has been similarly harsh. New York Times columnist and Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman derided the president’s claim that a “revved up economy” could fund new tax cuts and spending increases as “deep voodoo” — alluding to Trump’s embrace of trickle-down economics.
Washington Post contributor and Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) senior fellow Jared Bernstein slammed Trump’s “wholly unrealistic” budget outline in a February 28 column and chided the president for claiming that he can simultaneously increase military spending, cut taxes on high-income earners and corporations, and reduce the federal deficit — all while leaving vital entitlement programs alone. In order to even approach a balanced budget in 10 years, Trump would have to remove almost everything else in the budget:
According to a February 27 analysis from the CBPP, Trump’s proposal, when coupled with his plan to boost infrastructure investments, would mean nondefense spending would see a whopping 15 percent reduction.
The reason for the outsized hit to nondefense discretionary spending is that the programs covered by that part of the federal budget — education, energy, affordable housing, infrastructure investments, law enforcement, foreign aid, some veterans’ benefits, etc. — only account for a small part of all federal spending.
The largest part of the federal budget is mandatory spending for entitlement programs including Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, other veterans’s benefits, and unemployment insurance. From the Congressional Budget Office:
Trump’s proposed cuts to the State Department are so onerous that more than 120 retired generals signed an open letter to congressional leaders warning of their ramifications.
One co-signer told CBS News that such steep cuts would be “consigning us to a generational war,” and the letter itself quoted Secretary of Defense James Mattis, who argued during his time at the head of US Central Command that “if you don’t fully fund the State Department, then I need to buy more ammunition.”
ThinkProgress blasted Trump’s proposals to cut the State Department along with domestic spending in the name of increasing national defense because such cuts would actually undermine national security.
The article cited recent congressional testimony from Center for American Progress senior fellow Larry Korb, who testified that “our national security will suffer” if the federal budget prioritized the Pentagon at the expense of other agencies.
Trump is notorious for pushing bogus claims about the economy and the federal budget. He has been derided by hundreds of economists for pushing right-wing myths about the economy and the federal debt, and routine criticisms of his unfounded claims were a mainstay of the presidential campaign in 2016.
As was the case last year, the budgetary, fiscal, and tax policies Trump has supported since taking office simply don’t add up.
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