From xxxxxx <[email protected]>
Subject Here's How to Force Biden to Cut the Pentagon Budget
Date May 6, 2021 3:45 AM
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[ Get organized. Ask for meetings with your representatives or
their foreign policy staffers. Be fierce; be relentless. Channel the
grit of a Pentagon lobbyist. ] [[link removed]]

HERE'S HOW TO FORCE BIDEN TO CUT THE PENTAGON BUDGET  
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Medea Benjamin and Marcy Winograd
May 5, 2021
Alternet
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_ Get organized. Ask for meetings with your representatives or their
foreign policy staffers. Be fierce; be relentless. Channel the grit of
a Pentagon lobbyist. _

President Joe Biden, joined by Vice President Kamala Harris and
Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, delivers remarks during a press
conference Wednesday, Feb. 10, 2021, at the Pentagon in Arlington,
Virginia., (Official White House Photo by Adam Schultz)

 

Imagine this scenario:

A month before the vote on the federal budget, progressives in
Congress declared, "We've studied President Biden's proposed $753
billion military budget, an increase of $13 billion from Trump's
already inflated budget, and we can't, in good conscience, support
this."

Now that would be a show stopper, particularly if they added, "So we
have decided to stand united, arm in arm, as a block of NO votes on
any federal budget resolution that fails to reduce military spending
by 10-30 percent. We stand united against a federal budget resolution
that includes upwards of $30 billion for new nuclear weapons slated to
ultimately cost nearly $2 trillion. We stand united in demanding the
$50 billion earmarked to maintain all 800 overseas bases, including
the new one under construction in Henoko, Okinawa, be reduced by a
third because it's time we scaled back on plans for global
domination."

"Ditto," they say, "for the billions the President wants for the
arms-escalating US Space Force, one of Trump's worst ideas, right up
there with hydroxychloroquine to cure COVID-19, and, no, we don't want
to escalate our troop deployments for a military confrontation with
China in the South China Sea. It's time to 'right-size' the military
budget and demilitarize our foreign policy."

Progressives uniting as a block to resist out-of-control military
spending would be a no-nonsense exercise of raw power reminiscent of
how the right-wing Freedom Caucus challenged the traditional
Republicans in the House in 2015. Without progressives on board,
President Biden may not be able to secure enough votes to pass a
federal budget that would then green light the reconciliation process
needed for his broad domestic agenda.

For years, progressives in Congress have complained about the bloated
military budget. In 2020, 93 members in the House and 23 in the
Senate voted [[link removed]] to cut the
Pentagon budget by 10% and invest those funds instead in critical
human needs. A House Spending Reduction Caucus
[[link removed]],
co-chaired by Representatives Barbara Lee and Mark Pocan, emerged with
22 members on board.

Meet the members of the House Defense Spending Reduction Caucus:

Barbara Lee (CA-13); Mark Pocan (WI-2); Bonnie Watson Coleman (NJ-12);
Ilhan Omar (MN-5); Raùl Grijalva (AZ-3); Mark DeSaulnier (CA-11); Jan
Schakowsky(IL-9); Pramila Jayapal (WA-7); Jared Huffman (CA-2); Alan
Lowenthal (CA-47); James P. McGovern (MA-2); Peter Welch (VT-at
large); Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY-14); Frank Pallone, Jr (NJ-6).;
Rashida Tlaib (MI-13); Ro Khanna (CA-17); Lori Trahan (MA-3); Steve
Cohen (TN-9); Ayanna Pressley (MA-7), Anna Eshoo (CA-18).

We also have the Progressive Caucus, the largest Caucus in Congress
with almost 100 members in the House and Senate. Caucus Chair Pramila
Jayapal is all for cutting military spending. "We're in the midst of a
crisis that has left millions of families unable to afford food, rent,
and bills. But at the same time, we're dumping billions of dollars
into a bloated Pentagon budget," she said
[[link removed]].
"Don't increase defense spending. Cut it—and invest that money into
our communities."

Now is the time for these congresspeople to turn their talk into
action.

Consider the context. President Biden urgently wants to move forward
on his American Families Plan
[[link removed]] rolled
out in his recent State of the Union address. The plan would tax the
rich to invest $1.8 trillion over the next ten years in universal
preschool, two years of tuition-free community college, expanded
healthcare coverage and paid family medical leave.

President Biden, in the spirit of FDR, also wants to put America back
to work in a $2-trillion infrastructure program 
[[link removed]]that
will begin to fix our decades-old broken bridges, crumbling sewer
systems and rusting water pipes. This could be his legacy, a light
Green New Deal to transition workers out of the dying fossil fuel
industry.

But Biden won't get his infrastructure program and American Families
Plan with higher taxes on the rich, almost 40% on income for
corporations and those earning $400,000 or more a year, without
Congress first passing a budget resolution that includes a top line
for military and non-military spending. Both the budget resolution and
reconciliation bill that would follow are filibuster proof and only
require a simple majority in the House and Senate to pass.

Easy.

Maybe not.

To flex their muscles, Republicans may refuse to vote for a budget
resolution crafted by the Democratic Party that would open the door to
big spending on public goods, such as pre-kindergarten and expanded
health care coverage. That means Biden would need every Democrat in
the House and Senate on board to approve his budget resolution for
military and non-military spending.

So how's it looking?

In the Senate, Democrat Joe Manchin from West VA, a state that went
for Trump over Biden more than two-to-one, wants to scale back Biden's
infrastructure proposal, but hasn't sworn to vote down a budget
resolution. As for Senator Bernie Sanders, the much-loved progressive,
ordinarily he might balk at a record high military budget, but if the
budget resolution ushers in a reconciliation bill that lowers the age
of Medicare eligibility to 60 or 55, the Chair of the Senate Budget
Committee may hold his fire.

That leaves anti-war activists wondering if Senator Elizabeth Warren,
a critic of the Pentagon budget and "nuclear modernization," would
consider stepping up as the lone holdout in the Senate, refusing to
vote for a budget that includes billions for new nuclear weapons.
Perhaps with a push from outraged constituents in Massachusetts,
Warren could be convinced to take this bold stand. Another potential
hold out could be California Senator Dianne Feinstein, who co-chairs
the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water
Development, the committee that oversees the budgeting for nuclear
weapons. In 2014, Feinstein described the US nuclear arsenal program
as "unnecessarily and unsustainably large."
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Over in the House, Biden needs at least 218 of the 222 Democrats to
vote for the budget resolution expected to hit the floor in June or
July, but what if he couldn't get to 218? What if at least five
members of the House voted no—or even just threatened to vote
no—because the top line for military spending was too high and the
budget included new "money pit" nuclear land-based missiles to replace
450 Minute Man missiles.

The polls show
[[link removed]] most
Democrats oppose "nuclear modernization"—a euphemism for a plan that
is anything but modern given that 50 countries have signed on to
the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons
[[link removed]] making nuclear
weapons illegal and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)
requires the US pursue nuclear disarmament to avoid a catastrophic
accident or intentional atomic holocaust.

Now is the time for progressive congressional luminaries such as the
Squad's AOC, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, and Ayanna Presley to unite
with Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Pramila Jayapal, as well
as Barbara Lee, Mark Pocan and others in the House Spending Reduction
Caucus
[[link removed]] to
put their feet down and stand as a block against a bloated military
budget.

Will they have the courage to unite behind such a cause? Would they be
willing to play hardball and gum up the works on the way to Biden's
progressive domestic agenda?

Odds improve if constituents barrage them with phone calls, emails,
and visible protests. Tell them that in the time of a pandemic, it
makes no sense to approve a military budget that is 90 times the
budget of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Tell
them that the billions saved from "right sizing" the Pentagon could
provide critical funds for addressing the climate crisis. Tell them
that just as we support putting an end to our endless wars, so, too,
we support putting an end to our endless cycle of exponential military
spending.

Call your representative, especially If you live in a congressional
district represented by one of the members of the Progressive Caucus
[[link removed]] or the House
Spending Reduction Caucus
[[link removed]].
Don't wait for marching orders from someone else. No time to wait. In
the quiet of the COVID hour, our Congress toils away on appropriations
bills and a budget resolution. The showdown is coming soon.

Get organized. Ask for meetings with your representatives or their
foreign policy staffers. Be fierce; be relentless. Channel the grit of
a Pentagon lobbyist.

This is the moment to demand a substantial cut in military spending
that defunds new nuclear weapons.

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_Medea Benjamin is cofounder of __CODEPINK for Peace_
[[link removed]]_, and author of several books,
including __Inside Iran: The Real History and Politics of the Islamic
Republic of Iran_
[[link removed]]_.
@MedeaBenjamin_

_Marcy Winograd, Coordinator, CODEPINK Congress, also co-chairs the
foreign policy team for Progressive Democrats of America. In 2020, she
was a DNC delegate for Bernie
Sanders.  _@MarcyWinograd [email protected]

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