Friends,
During IPB’s Tax Day Global Days of Action on Military Spending webinar, David Vine gave an unexpected, forceful, and compelling talk. He went beyond urging that we do all that we can to oppose Trump’s ghastly plan to increase military spending by $500 Billion Dollars while slashing funding for everything from education and climate to health care and housing.
Rather than only organizing and responding defensively to oppose the increase, which we have to do, (demos, pressing members of Congress, webinars, and everything else we can think of) David urged us to go on the OFFENSIVE. He reminded us that we can take back a big chunk of money already allocated for new weapons systems, foreign military bases, propaganda and more, but not funds like G.I. paychecks, veterans benefits, etc. that would impact troops and their families.
David put forth realistic proposals about how the rescinded allocations could be spent: returning the money to citizens in the form of $600 to $1,200 stimulus checks (or a “peace dividend”), increasing funding for health care and housing, or some lowering of the national debt, ICE and Homeland Security would be other places to start.
I hadn’t known that there is actually a long history of Congress voting for recissions of many kinds of allocations.
David is honest enough to concede that we won’t win recission of these allocations during this, or maybe even the next session of Congress. BUT it provides us with positive and inclusive visions to build the future for ourselves, our children and grandchildren.
So, please read his article and share it with friends and colleagues.
Joseph