$350 Billion from Militarism to Human Needs

By kamala , 16 June 2020

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Lee, Jayapal, AOC Introduce Bill to Move $350 Billion from Militarism to Human Needs

By David Swanson
https://davidswanson.org/lee-jayapal-aoc-introduce-bill-to-move-350-billion-from-militarism-to-human-needs/

Here’s the text of a new bill in Congress: PDF.

Here’s a petition from Code Pink promoting it.

Needless to say, this is the best bill introduced into Congress in decades.

Here’s the ending:

“Congress supports moves to reduce the priority given to war in our foreign policy and our current war-based national economy by using significant cuts, up to $350,000,000,000 as detailed above, from current budget plans, while using the funds to increase our diplomatic capacity and for domestic programs that will keep our Nation and our people safer.”

The details above in the text of the bill include:

(1) eliminating the Overseas Contingency Operations account and saving $68,800,000,000;

(2) closing 60 percent of foreign bases and saving $90,000,000,000;

(3) ending wars and war funding and saving $66,000,000,000;

(4) cutting unnecessary weapons that are obsolete, excessive, and dangerous and saving $57,900,000,000;

(5) cutting military overhead by 15 percent and saving $38,000,000,000;

(6) cutting private service contracting by 15 percent and saving $26,000,000,000;

(7) eliminating the proposal for the Space Force and saving $2,600,000,000;

(8) ending use-it-or-lose-it contract spending and saving $18,000,000,000;

(9) freezing operations and maintenance budget levels and saving $6,000,000,000; and

(10) reducing United States presence in Afghanistan by half and saving $23,150,000,000.

The big deal is what’s unstated, namely the world of good that could be done with this level of annual funding — good that will save more lives and spare more suffering by far than what is produced by the wars. Of course, moving it out of militarism will spare us some of the wars as well.

David Swanson is an author, activist, journalist, and radio host. He is executive director of WorldBeyondWar.org and campaign coordinator for RootsAction.org. Swanson's books include War Is A Lie. He blogs at DavidSwanson.org and WarIsACrime.org. He hosts Talk Nation Radio. He is a 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019 Nobel Peace Prize Nominee.

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