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No... but happy April Fools’ Day. 
We’re used to hearing ad nauseam that the U.S. can’t afford universal healthcare, clean energy, free college, thriving K-12 education, child care, affordable housing, basic COVID measures, and on and on. But with all the money pouring into war, the military, and an increasingly militarized southern border, you’d have to be a fool to believe it.
The month of March brought two staggering new numbers in military spending: $782 billion [[link removed]] , and $813 billion [[link removed]] . The first is the war and military budget for fiscal year 2022 (now halfway over) that Congress just passed. The second ($813 billion) is the war and military budget just proposed just weeks later by President Biden for fiscal year 2023, which begins on October 1.
Here’s a pop quiz. Are both of these military budgets:

a) Higher than military spending at the peak of the Vietnam war
b) More than the next 11 countries’ military budgets combined
c) More than all federal spending for K-12 education, affordable housing, public health, and scientific and medical research combined
d) All of the above

No fooling, it’s d) All of the above [[link removed]] .

Both numbers are being justified on the back of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but U.S. military spending was already 12 times that of Russia. If higher military spending could solve the problem with Putin, we wouldn’t be where we are today [[link removed]] .
There are no two ways about it, this military budget is a boon for military contractors, who stand ready to “benefit from” [[link removed]] (their words) the Ukraine invasion. Certain members of Congress who’ve never seen a military budget that was too high think the budgets don’t go far enough. [[link removed]]
But we’re no fools. This kind of spending does nothing for the rest of us, in the U.S. or around the world.
In peace,
Lindsay, Ashik, Lorah, and Sam
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THIS WEEK'S TRADEOFF
The $1.5 trillion budget deal passed in March approved a mere $1 billion [[link removed]] in international climate finance for 2022. Only a slight increase above Trump-era spending and far short of what the administration requested, the $1 billion allocation is only a fraction of the $11 billion annual commitment the administration promised to deliver by 2024.
Compared to military spending, that’s chump change. With a $782 billion [[link removed]] military budget, the United States spends twice as much every day on the military than it does on international climate finance all year. With the ink hardly dry on the latest major U.N. report warning of intensifying climate impacts and the growing need for climate finance, the Biden administration must work with Congress to dramatically scale up international climate aid.
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BIDEN CALLS FOR CUTS TO IMMIGRATION DETENTION
After years of dedicated organizing to defund immigration enforcement and detention [[link removed]] , President Biden’s most recent budget requests a significant cut [[link removed]] to the number of ICE detention beds and cuts to ICE’s enforcement and custody funding. The budget request funds a decrease of detention beds to 25,000 from the 34,000 funded in the latest FY22 omnibus bill—eliminating all family detention beds and reducing total bed capacity at immigration detention facilities by 25%.
The Biden administration came into office promising to dismantle Trump’s harmful immigration policies. But we have been dismayed to see violent and deadly immigration enforcement policies continue to be funded at obscene levels [[link removed]] . We are encouraged by the step the Biden administration has taken to cut funding for immigration detention in the United States. Now it’s up to Congress to follow-through on the cut and reallocate our resources in ways that keep our communities truly safe.
“A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.
"America, the richest and most powerful nation in the world, can well lead the way in this revolution of values.
"There is nothing except a tragic death wish to prevent us from reordering our priorities, so that the pursuit of peace will take precedence over the pursuit of war.”
— Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., April 4, 1967, Riverside Church, New York City [[link removed]] [[link removed]]
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RECOMMENDED READS
Our Skyrocketing Military Spending Helps Pentagon Contractors - Not Ukraine [[link removed]]
Lindsay Koshgarian, Newsweek
Is super-polluting Pentagon’s climate plan just “military-grade greenwash?” [[link removed]]
Iffah Kitchlew, The Guardian
‘Betrayal’: US approves just $1bn climate finance for developing countries in 2022 [[link removed]]
Chloé Farand, Climate Home News
After February’s Dire IPCC Report, Green New Deal Is More Urgent Than Ever [[link removed]]
C.J Polychroniou, Truthout
Putin’s Nuclear Threats Are a Wake-Up Call for the World [[link removed]]
Uri Friedman, The Atlantic
Ukraine: The Refugee Double Standard [[link removed]] - Foreign Policy in Focus [[link removed]]
Abdoulie Njai, Micaela Torres, Margareta Matache, Foreign Policy in Focus
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