Invest federal budget dollars in our country, not in outmoded weapons systems New federal military budget weighs in at $560 billion. We can trim it and still be safe; and send that money to real human needs. President Obama released his proposed federal budget on February 26, 2009.
It showed many signs of promise; but we urge him and Congress to take a hard look at the military budget, and cut out wasteful outmoded Cold War weapons, as he promised in his "State of the Union" address on 2/24/09.While it's not a complete budget, we have learned this:
- The military budget weighs in at about $557 billion (that's Department of Defense plus nuclear weapons and some other military things). HALF the discretionary budget. And no matter how you slice it, a whole lotta money. (And, don't forget, this does NOT pay for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; that comes from supplemental appropriations, which clock in at $130 billion in FY10.)
- Yes, it's an increase over last year's amount. The previous military budget was $541 billion. If you break it down, you have an inflationary increase, plus an extra $9 billion. (The good news is that the Bush proposed budget would have been over $600 billion.)
- HOWEVER... it IS a smaller than average increase than we had over the past eight years. So it's not a decrease -- but it does start a trend toward slowing the growth, and hopefully one day actually trimming the size of the military slice.
One bright spot: We don't have all the news on nukes in the budget, but it does look like the
death knell has sounded for the nuclear "Reliable Replacement Warhead." This is great news! The arms control community spent a lot of time and energy in reaching out to Congress year after year, to convince them that the last thing we need are new nuclear weapons.
Send a message to Congress: less for the Pentagon and outdated weapons systems; more for our future: education, energy alternatives, healthcare. 