Despite a lot of hype about cuts to the military budget, the Pentagon has used war budgets and slush funds to avoid most cuts, while every other government program has faced the axe. As a result, the percentage of discretionary spending going to militarism, across multiple departments, is on the rise. It now stands at 57 percent.
The sequester imposes minimal cuts on the military, but members of Congress are maneuvering to undo those cuts and replace them with increases. Similar efforts are not underway on behalf of education, environmental protection, foreign aid, or any other non-destructive program.
TO DOJoin The Nation, RootsAction, WESPAC Foundation, Know Drones and PJC-Sonoma in calling on Congress to keep military spending at sequester level or lower and to invest the additional savings in human and environmental needs.
TO READAt TomDispatch.com, Mattea Kramer of the National Priorities Project broke down the ways in which the United States military managed to avoid the dramatic cuts the sequester imposed on scores of other public programs.
TO WATCHThis fall, the National Priorities Project released a video to highlight their campaign to “take back the federal budget” and make it work for all of us.
