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Dear John,
While the entire world waits to see whether the fiscal slash-and-burn crowd in the U.S. Congress will send the country (and possibly the world) into a recession, reports indicate that at least one major category of spending will be exempt from any cuts: military spending.
As we show in a new report out this week, The Warfare State: How Funding for Militarism Compromises Our Welfare [[link removed]] , militarism accounts for $1.1 trillion, or 62 percent, of the discretionary budget [[link removed]] – the same pot of money the extremists are targeting with their economic hostage-taking threats.
That $1.1 trillion includes spending for the military and weapons, deportations and detentions, and federal law enforcement and mass incarceration. And some of those are the very categories that extremists want to protect. Instead, they want to concentrate cuts on the programs they don’t like.
If the slash-and-burn extremists got their way, we would see social programs — everything from K-12 education and housing, to child care and public health, to food safety and medical research gutted. And we would see spending on the military continue to grow unchecked.
That’s true even though our new report shows that less than $2 out of every 5 federal discretionary dollars is spent on those priorities to begin with.
In fact, our report shows that since 2001, the federal budget for militarism has grown by $2 for every $1 added for social programs.
Militarism destroys lives and livelihoods [[link removed]] . The post-9/11 wars led to the death of an unimaginable 4.5 million people [[link removed]] in affected countries — and are widely considered to be failures [[link removed]] by the U.S. public. Our broken approach to immigration has led to the deportation of more than 5 million people [[link removed]] , most of whom committed no crime other than their presence in their communities. And the U.S. maintains the highest incarceration rate [[link removed]] in the world and a pattern of racist police violence.
The only sane response is to cut funding for militarism and war, and reinvest in social programs that save lives and prevent violence — the exact programs that far-right hardliners want to gut.
In solidarity,
Lindsay, Ashik, Alliyah, & the NPP team
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TRADEOFF: DIPLOMACY VS. WAR
Spending on the military and homeland security has too often failed to meaningfully contribute to security — when all you have are hammers, everything looks like a nail.
This year, the U.S. spent $16 on the military and war for every $1 that was spent on diplomacy and humanitarian foreign aid.
The vast majority of militarized spending was for weapons, war and the Pentagon, at $920 billion. Only $56 billion was spent for international affairs, diplomacy, and humanitarian foreign aid.
There is an alternative: a world where the U.S. pays more than lip service to the idea of prioritizing diplomacy and humanitarian outreach over military might.
Read our analysis of:
The Warfare State: How Funding for Militarism Compromises Our Welfare [[link removed]]
Share on Facebook [[link removed]] , Instagram [[link removed]] or Twitter [[link removed]]
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WHAT WOULD YOU DO WITH $1 TRILLION?
The world spent $2 trillion on militaries in 2022 (with the U.S. as the biggest spende [[link removed]] r). Activists worldwide weighed in on what they would do with $2 trillion as part of the Global Days of Action on Military Spending in April and May. Pictured, activists with Peace Boat [[link removed]] , a Japan-based non-governmental organization, ride through the Suez Canal as part of the global protest against wasting precious resources on militarism.
High on the list of where people from all over the world would spend $2 trillion? Activists from all over the world named climate change (over and over again), education, healthcare, housing, child poverty, world hunger, gender equality, peace itself, and more.
Where would you spend $2 trillion?
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CONGRESS BUILDS UP BORDER MILITARISM
On the 11th of this month, Title 42 was lifted. The Biden administration sent 1,500 active-duty troops [[link removed]] to the southern border in anticipation of chaos, yet calm and order remained. What ensued was a fortification of the Trump-like asylum ban rule [[link removed]] that makes it difficult for migrants to seek asylum – even though the right to seek asylum is embedded into U.S. and international laws. The result has been horrific, as yet another [[link removed]] child died at the hands of ICE and CBP – this time, it was 8-year-old Annadith [[link removed]] .
Meanwhile, members in both the House and Senate introduced new border funding bills. This means more spending for enforcement, monitoring, and detainments – all in the name of border security. That’s on top of the $51.1 billion already budgeted in FY 2023 for homeland security – nearly three times equivalent of what goes to substance abuse and mental health programs, as our new report [[link removed]] shows.
"If you're happy with companies gouging you and just looking you right in the eye and say, 'I'm gonna keep gouging you because I know you don't have the guts to do anything about it,' then I guess we should just keep doing what we're doing,"
— Shay Assad, former Pentagon official and Raytheon executive, on current Pentagon contracting practices 60 Minutes , May 21, 2023 [[link removed]]
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RECOMMENDED LINKS
READING
Unwarranted Influence, Twenty-First-Century-Style [[link removed]]
Ben Freeman & William D. Hartung, Tom Dispatch
Imagine if Another Bernie Sanders Challenges Joe Biden [[link removed]]
Peter Beinart, New York Times
Selling War Amid Climate Change [[link removed]]
Nico Edwards, Inkstick
Armed and Afraid: The High Price of Fear [[link removed]]
Svante Myrick, Otherwords
Want to Cut Spending? Here’s How Much of Our Budget Is Going to the Military and Police [[link removed]]
Indigo Olivier, New Republic
WATCHING
Weapons contractors hitting Department of Defense with inflated prices for planes, submarines, missiles [[link removed]]
60 Minutes
Are militaries driving the climate crisis? [[link removed]]
Al Jazeera
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