DAVID SWANSON – If wisdom about the counter-productive results of militarism spread, if nonviolent alternatives were learned, if free college had a positive impact on our collective intellect, and if the fact that we could end global poverty or halt global warming for a fraction of current military spending leaked out, who knows? Maybe militarism would fail in the free market.
Tag: National Priorities Project
World Has No Idea How U.S. Decides on Wars
DAVID SWANSON – This, dear world, is more or less how the world’s largest-ever killing machine operates. It turns its eyes away from the machine’s work and, if pushed, debates the care of the machine itself — maintaining more or less complete obliviousness to the horrors the machine produces in those far away places where you live and die.
Public Says Cut Pentagon, Obama Says Increase It
DAVID SWANSON – Did you know that the U.S. public wants military spending cut? Did you know that President Barack Obama wants to increase it for his third year in a row? Actually I already know that most of you didn’t know either of these things.
This “Lame Duck” Had Wings
CHRIS HELLMAN – After the November elections, members of Congress returned to Capitol Hill for their “lame duck†session with one huge piece of unfinished business – the Fiscal Year 2011 budget. And while they failed to complete work on the budget – the government is currently running on a “continuing resolution†that funds federal agencies through March 4, 2011 – the lame duck session did pass legislation on a number of serious issues.
Let’s Expand Our Definition of Defense
CRAIG CLINE – There appear to be no easy ways out of the financial difficulties we face. We have “money messes” at our local, state, and federal levels. There is one big thing that can help us though, and I propose that all of us get behind the following objective, with all the political and financial power we can muster, starting right here in Salem-Keizer.
Trade Offs Tool Shows the Magnitude of Federal Budget Spending
NATIONAL PRIORITIES PROJECT — With all eyes on our nation’s budget, National Priorities Project (NPP) has overhauled its Trade Offs Tool designed to clarify the magnitude and localized impact of federal spending programs. The tool estimates FY2011 spending for select federal programs for individual states, counties, congressional districts, and towns. It then represents these dollar amounts in terms of localized costs of alternative goods and services such as police, teachers, or care for military veterans.
Actual War Spending to Top $1 Trillion Today
NATIONAL PRIORITIES PROJECT — National Priorities Project’s Cost of War counter http://www.costofwar.com/, designed to count the total money appropriated for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, will reach the $1 trillion mark on May 30 at approximately 10:06 a.m. (regardless of time zone).
If I Had a Trillion Dollars: Youth Video Contest Announced
NATIONAL PRIORITIES PROJECT — The money that is being spent on the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will reach $1 trillion within the next five months. This money could be spent in our communities on many things that now face cuts, like after school programs, art and music programs, and summer jobs. You can spread the word. The American Friends Service Committee and National Priorities Project are sponsoring a youth video project to help young people (high school and college age) enter the cost-of-war discussion. Share your ideas about what you would do – for yourself, your family and your community – with $1 trillion.
National Priorities Project Releases FY2011 Budget Analysis
NATIONAL PRIORITIES PROJECT: President Obama issued his Fiscal Year 2011 budget on February 1, 2010 – a 2,585-page proposed blueprint for addressing the social agonies caused by record-high job loss, a continued sluggish economy and state deficits.
NPP Tallies Cost of War Through September 2009
Congress has appropriated another $84.8 billion for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan for the remainder of the 2009 fiscal year ending September 30, 2009. The Supplemental Appropriations Act of 2009, signed into law by President Obama on June 24, 2009, allocates $45.5 billion for war-related actions in Iraq and $39.4 billion to Afghanistan[1] [2].