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Use Our Tax Dollars??
By maudeaster on 2019-07-12 08:00:49
If you could choose where your tax dollars go, what would you choose? Affordable health care? Good schools? Affordable
college? Job retraining? Affordable day care? Taming climate change by greening our economy?
Pe
With all the money we are paying for the US military ($698 million from just
Albany County taxpayers in 2018!), why is there so little left for what our families need for decent lives now --- and safer
lives as the climate changes? Answer: US military spending eats up 61% of our discretionary federal budget. According to
the National Priorities Project ,that $698 million we sent to the Pentagon could have paid for | year of:
¢ 6, 834 more elementary school teachers or
e 231,332 low income children receiving health care or
e 9,421 clean energy jobs or [caption id="attachment_ 12784" align="alignright" width="150"]
Smiling doctor examining his little patient[/caption]
¢ 69 million households with solar electricity
Instead we got an over-resourced Pentagon, unfortunately primed for conflict, whether needed or not. If what you have is a
hammer, everything looks like a nail! When the Pentagon is well-fed, with all the weapons, bases, and troops it wants,
every potential conflict tempts the President, the military and even Congress to threaten military action before diplomacy
has a chance. Think about the President’s threats last year to use nuclear weapons against North Korea, or this year to
attack Iran and Venezuela. Military action should be the last resort, not the first impulse. Think of the human destruction of
ai
US bombs dropping on Yemen. Last year the average US taxpayer paid
$183 for all diplomacy and foreign aid, compared to 19 times as much- $3457 — for the military. Does that budget
reflect the foreign policy you want? Congress will soon be considering President Trump’s proposed near-record high
military budget: $727 Billion. We need to call our representatives (Senators Schumer and Gillibrand,
Congressmen Tonko and Delgado) through the Congressional switchboard - 202-224-3121. Tell them to cut back Pentagon
spending and send our communities more money for health care, education and green jobs. [caption id="attachment_ 12792"
align="alignnone" width="573"]
Stop overspending on the Pentagon. July 2019. From Forbes Magazine. Added by Mickie Lynn on July 12, 2019[/caption]
