Wednesday, April 22, 2020
Coronavirus
Crisis Makes Clear Pentagon Should Get No More Money This Year for Its
'Wasteful War Machine': 60+ Groups
"We cannot continue spending billions of dollars on weapons
of war while people across the country struggle to buy food, pay rent, and survive
a pandemic."
Not
a dime of additional funding should be appropriated this year to the Pentagon's
already bloated budget, which has enabled endless war while resources that
could have helped the nation better respond to the coronavirus crisis have gone
"chronically underfunded."
That's
the message of a letter (pdf) to congressional leadership
delivered Wednesday by over 60 organizations.
"The
COVID-19 crisis has revealed that decades of funneling trillions of dollars
into the Pentagon while gutting critical social services, including public
health measures, has made us less safe, not more," said Stephen Miles,
executive director of Win Without War, in a statement.
"Now
of all times, it should be clear that the Pentagon does not need more
money," he added.
Win
Without War led the letter, which is signed by a broad array of organizations
including CODEPINK, the Friends Committee on National legislation, Indivisible,
Social Security Works, and Veterans For Peace.
"With
the additional $10.4 billion provided to the Pentagon as part of the Phase III
package, the Pentagon's Fiscal Year (FY) 2020 appropriated funding now totals
over $756 billion and provides more than enough resources to respond to the
pandemic," the letter states.
The
groups go on to describe what they see as fundamentally flawed funding
priorities:
Over half of all spending appropriated
by Congress annually goes to the Pentagon, leaving other federal agencies to
compete with one another for scarce resources. In this context, the United
States has chronically underfunded human and environmental needs while,
particularly in recent years, passing historically high Pentagon budgets that
foster militarism, enable endless war, engender waste, and sow corruption. To
give just one example of the spending mismatch: the combined annual budgets of
the Centers for Disease Control and
"The
U.S. spends a grotesque and unacceptable amount on its wasteful war machine,"
said Savannah Wooten, campaign coordinator with People Over the Pentagon.
Rather
than direct more cash to the Pentagon for it to respond to the pandemic, the
Defense Department should look at savings it's likely seeing now as a result of
a slowdown in arms production as a possible resource, the groups wrote.
"Given the steep drop in the price of oil, the Pentagon, as the world's
largest purchaser of oil, stands to save billions," the groups added.
In the longer term, some estimates suggest [pdf] that the
Pentagon could save hundreds of billions of dollars by ending wars, reforming
defense contracting, right-sizing the military services, scaling back or
forgoing the purchase of legacy weapons systems, and closing overseas bases.
Taking these steps would not only incur savings, but also create more security
and stability in the U.S. and abroad.
"If
taxpayers are being asked to adjust their budgets, surely the recipient of
three quarters of a trillion of our tax dollars can be asked to do the
same," said the groups. "We urge you to focus your attention on the
national pandemic response and economic relief for people across the United
States rather than providing more money for the Pentagon's already overflowing
coffers."
According
to Pam Campos-Palma, director of Vets for the People, it's simply time to turn
off the spigot of funding for the U.S. war machine.
"We
have spent trillions of dollars, and lost thousands of lives, fighting endless
wars that the Pentagon claimed would make us safer. They didn't," she
said.
"Now
that our security is fundamentally at risk—from a threat that no weapon can
fight—they're asking for more," said Campos-Palma. "We cannot
continue spending billions of dollars on weapons of war while people across the
country struggle to buy food, pay rent, and survive a pandemic."
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Donations can be sent
to Max Obuszewski, Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 431 Notre Dame Lane, Apt. 206,
Baltimore, MD 21212. Ph: 410-323-1607; Email: mobuszewski2001 [at]
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"The master class
has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles.
The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject
class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their
lives." Eugene Victor Debs
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