ACTION ALERT: Support the Military Spending Reduction Caucus
World BEYOND War
“A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.” — Martin Luther King, Jr.
The US discretionary budget devotes more to militarism than to everything else combined. This spending generates wars, rather than preventing them. It destroys the natural environment, enriches the wealthy, drains the economy, erodes civil liberties and government transparency, fuels bigotry, and is a major source of death, injury, and homelessness.
Last summer, the US public told pollsters it favored moving 10% of military spending to human and environmental needs, but the US Congress voted down a proposal to do just that. Now President-Elect Joe Biden is proposing massive spending packages, to be funded primarily through debt, with no mention of the military budget.
Biden’s proposal to immediately spend $1.9 trillion on the pandemic and economy (as well as boosting the minimum wage to $15/hour) has a lot that’s good in it, though it could be made better in a number of ways. It could be significantly funded by increased taxes on the super-wealthy, something Biden campaigned on. It should also be funded by tax dollars redirected from the military budget.
Problems with borrowing the necessary money include (1) it costs more than it looks like, because of interest, (2) it’s harder to pass through Congress, (3) it further empowers the people who loan the money, and especially (4) it creates a major lost opportunity to move funding out of places where it shouldn’t be into places where it should be. It also fuels the “big government” vs. “small government” debate, displacing the badly needed “what kind of government” debate.
Pandemic rescues, economic rescues, and Green New Deals should not fail to draw on the massive, counterproductive funding that goes each and every year into militarism. Nor should they fail to take advantage of the plans and scholarship that have for decades been poured into the project of conversion to peaceful industries.
If you have time, add your own words to the email. If you have a bit more time, phone them as well. After signing the petition, please use the tools on the next webpage to share it with your friends.
Thanks for all you do.
Background:
>> Martin Luther King Jr.: “Beyond Vietnam — A Time to Break Silence”
>> David Swanson: “Where Will Biden Get the Money?”
>> New York Times: “President-elect Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion economic plan will run up big debts”
>> Jeff Cohen and Norman Solomon: “The Martin Luther King You Don’t See on TV”
World BEYOND War is a global network of volunteers, activists, and allied organizations advocating for the abolition of the very institution of war. Our success is driven by a people-powered movement – support our work for a culture of peace.
