Dear John,
Americans are hurting, and the government isn’t helping enough.
Gas and food prices are high. 76 percent of Americans said that cost-of-living was their top economic concern. Trump’s war on Iran is only making the situation worse.
Instead of helping, two major proposals now in Congress would use the tremendous power of the federal government to stoke war and tear families apart.
The first is a funding package for ICE and mass detention and deportations worth more than $71 billion. No longer held up by Trump’s request for a $1.8 billion “Trump club” fund to reward his political allies, this travesty looks poised to pass Congress.
The second is a package to pass the largest part – $1.15 trillion – of Trump and “Secretary of War” Pete Hegseth’s $1.5 trillion war budget. That alone would amount to a $250 billion raise for war and weapons - and their plan is to follow up with even more war funds in later legislation.
This week, NPP has joined a letter with 80 other organizations urging key members of Congress to say no to any increases in war spending.
The Iran war has already cost between $50 billion to $72 billion, and a new report co-authored by NPP’s Hanna Homestead placed the cost of the January invasion of Venezuela and related costs at $4.7 billion and still climbing.
None of this new spending on war and deportations is popular: close to 60 percent of Americans think a $1.5 trillion war budget is either “much too high” or “somewhat too high.” And in the aftermath of fatal shootings and street terror in Minneapolis, 65 percent of Americans said ICE has “gone too far.”
Members of Congress need to hear from people like you! We don’t ask this often, but now is the time to call your members of Congress by dialing 202-224-3121. Tell them NO more funding for ICE, and NO more funding for war and weapons! Find your representatives here.
It’s time for our tax dollars to benefit us, not corporations that profit from war and persecution of immigrants.
In solidarity,
Alliyah, Hanna and Lindsay
