Dear John,

We need a hero. Conservatives in Congress are threatening to throw themselves over the fiscal cliff by refusing to pay the country’s bills, taking the rest of us with them. The consequences of such an action could make the Great Recession look like a walk in the park.

Conservatives in Congress have threatened to refuse to pay the country’s bills unless the administration and Democrats agree to cut domestic programs, including education, child care, housing, and veterans’ care, by a devastating 22 percent.

While the rest of us could use a hero to save us from this recklessness, the Pentagon’s hero has already arrived: the Republican plan led by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy wouldn’t cut a single penny from the war budget.

More than half of the annual discretionary budget already goes to the military and war. Our just-released 2022 tax receipt shows that the average taxpayer handed over $1,087 to Pentagon contractors, compared to just $270 for K-12 education and a measly $6.43 for renewable energy - less than the price of (a price-gouging) lunch at Chipotle.

Included in that $1,087 for corporate military contractors was the $105 the average taxpayer handed over to Lockheed Martin, the top military contractor and maker of the boondoggle F-35 jet fighter.

To pay the public back for our generosity, this month the Lockheed board urged shareholders to nix a planned report on how the company could meet international climate goals, saying the report would be “not in the best interest of our Company or our stockholders.” It’s a timely reminder that military contractors’ best interests are not the nation’s, or the world’s.

Finally, this month the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute released their annual global military spending figures. No surprise, the U.S. once again spent more than the next 10 countries combined, and nearly twice as much as the bottom 144 countries combined. And yet, we still hear that the U.S. needs a bigger war budget.

We don’t have a superhero to save us from this reckless spending. We have power in numbers. Now through May 9, people around the world are joining together to oppose military spending in their communities. See more about the campaign, or join a protest.

In peace,

Lindsay, Ashik, Alliyah, & the NPP team

TRADEOFF: US VS. THE WORLD

World military spending has reached a new record high of $2.24 trillion in 2022, according to new data published by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).

The full U.S. military budget is much more than the $514 billion spent by the rest of the world’s 144 nations combined. That’s a difference of $363 billion, which would be enough to fund solar power for nearly every household in the U.S. for 10 years.

$363 billion could fund 43 million public housing units – more than the 38 million people displaced as refugees in the post-9/11 wars waged by the U.S. over the past two decades.

Over-investment in the military is a major cause of the crises we face today. But it’s possible to reinvest in real solutions and begin to repair the harm caused by many decades of war.

Read our analysis of US vs. global military spending here.

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TACKLING CLIMATE & MILITARISM
AT A YOUTH CONFERENCE

How are the climate crisis and militarism connected? From the Pentagon as the largest oil consumer in the world to the threats of detention and deportation toward migrants by U.S. border enforcement, the answers are plentiful.

In early April, the National Priorities Project joined partner organizations and presented about the climate-militarism connection at the annual Power Shift Convergence where young people from the climate movement meet to bring together ideas and partake in direct collaborative action to build a just, climate-resilient future for all.

BIDEN ADMIN ANNOUNCES HARMFUL
REGIONAL MIGRATION PLAN

Title 42, the Trump-era policy that disregarded international law and turned back thousands of migrants at our Southern border, ends in a week. And the response of the Biden administration? Asking for more funding to tighten restrictions on the southern border. More barriers to entry, more deportations, more detentions, more surveillance - all topped off with a request for more money to ICE and CBP.

Immigrant advocates are saying no to the proposed asylum ban barreled forward in this announcement and are pushing for a serious reconsideration of current immigration policies, as the Defund Hate coalition states here. What will it take for our leaders to commit to investing in resources and policies that will welcome and take care of migrants and asylees that come to the southern border?

The board of Lockheed Martin urged shareholders to vote no on a resolution requiring a report on how to meet international climate goals, saying it would be:
“premature and not in the best interest of our Company or our stockholders.”

— reporting in Jacobin, 4/20/23