De-escalate violence in the federal budget

With last week’s overwhelmingly sad and tragic news of gun violence in Newtown, CT, leaving 27 people dead, including 20 young children, we are reminded of the importance of joining together to make our country and world a safer place for all. We applaud the president’s commitment to do something to reduce the level of violence in our society, and we will support proposals to stop unrestricted gun sales and to ban the purchase of assault weapons, like the .223 Bushmaster that killed the children in Newtown.

Violence at home and war abroad is too often our answer.

We need to act for alternatives that de-escalate violence in our world. And as officials in Washington move to make a deal this week on the federal budget, their decisions will have a big impact on the changes for de-escalation.      

Cutting the military budget is supported by most Americans. It’s needed to stave off more war. It contributes to fiscal balance and health. It motivates addressing massive waste and dysfunction in Pentagon spending. It is better than raiding Social Security and Medicare funds. It makes space for investing in education and green jobs.

The U.S. military is the world’s largest consumer of fossil fuels — a major factor in climate change. Unaddressed, climate change will continue to create conditions that generate global conflict, such as famine, scarce resources and climate refugees. It will also continue to wreak havoc here at home with droughts and extreme weather.  Confronting climate change allows us to move to a green economy, which will in turn result in real sustainable jobs.     

Sign the petition urging the president and Congress to abandon austerity solutions to the deficit and instead end the war, cut military spending, tax the super-rich, and redirect resources to restore and protect the social safety net, create jobs, deal with climate change and meet other urgent social needs. 

War and outrageous Pentagon spending has a detrimental affect on our whole economy. We all lose, when we chose to spend 57% of our discretionary funds on war and the preparation for war.   

In addition to signing this petition, please also call your senators (congressional switchboard: 202-225-3121) and say that significant reductions in military spending are essential to any agreement about next year’s budget and long-term deficit reduction, in addition to higher taxes on the rich.

Talking Points

Look to the Pentagon for cuts first — that’s where all the money is! Unnecessary and wasteful spending maintains huge profits for military corporations and does not make our country more secure.  

• The Pentagon receives more money than it can use. This year it is holding more than $100 billion in unobligated (surplus) funds.
• The Pentagon is the only federal agency NOT subject to an annual audit. In one year, the Pentagon loses, wastes or misspends more than the combined budgets of five other departments: State, Interior, Commerce, Justice, and Energy.
• There are lots of places in the bloated run-away Pentagon budget where cuts could be made that won’t impact people’s security — overseas bases, waste, fraud and abuse, weapons systems that don’t work for use against enemies that no longer exist, and more.

Click here to sign the petition and join more than 15,000 people and more than 100 organizations.

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