Media Release

For Immediate Release: February 3, 2009
For More Info: Mark Dunlea, 518 434-7371 xt 1#, 212 741-8192 xt 5#
Maureen Aumand, 518 869-6674

Groups Call on Congressional Delegation, State Lawmakers to Push for Cuts in Military Budget to Resolve State Budget Deficit, Stimulate Economy

ALBANY - Peace, faith, labor and human service organizations today called upon New York’s Congressional delegation and state legislators to advocate for a major cut in the federal military budget. Such cuts would help resolve the state's fiscal crisis without the need for massive cuts in spending for housing, education, welfare and health programs, while creating more jobs and more security for Americans than continued military outlays.

The groups, which included Bethlehem Neighbors for Peace, Hunger Action Network of NYS, Veterans for Peace and Women Against War, said that President Obama, rather than exempting military spending from his recent call to control federal spending, should instead make the ever-expanding military budget the focus of his efforts to cut the federal budget deficit and to revive the economy. The groups called upon New York’s Congressional delegation—including Congressmembers Tonko and Murphy and Senators Gillibrand and Schumer—to propose significant cuts in the $708 billion military budget proposed by President Obama. The groups also urged the State Senate and Assembly to pass resolutions calling upon Congress to cut the federal military budget, and to bring our National Guard back to New York.

“A half century ago, President Eisenhower, who successfully led the allied forces in World War Two, warned the American people about the social and budget dangers posed by the military industrial complex. Eisenhower's warnings unfortunately have gone unheeded by Presidents and Congress alike as they have transformed our military budget into huge slush fund for corporate war profiteers and their campaign contributions. The main reason why we spend more on the military than the rest of the world combined is to enrich military contractors who have no concerns about the well-being or security of the average American.  The trillion dollar war in Iraq, now recognized as a terrible mistake by almost everyone in America, is a perfect symbol of the effects of this system: corporate profits rose in the military sector, while our security deteriorated, our government debt ballooned, and our economy headed for disaster," stated Mark Dunlea, Executive Director of Hunger Action Network.

 

"It is long past time for politicians to admit that our massive military budget is not in the interest of the American public. It is time to reject the bipartisan collusion to exempt the military budget from any cuts. It is obscene that any efforts to provide more federal funding to protect our children, seniors and the environment has to be accompanied by cuts in other programs while the payments to the military industrial complex is exempted from such rules,” said Joe Lombardo of Bethlehem Neighbors for Peace

 

Hunger Action Network for instance is seeking, as part of the effort to end childhood hunger, to increase annual spending on federal child nutrition programs such as school and summer meals and WIC (Women, Infants and Children) by $4 billion.  Any such increase, under current federal rules, would have to be accompanied either by similar spending cuts in other domestic programs or tax hikes.

"Putting the painful and undeniable fact aside that the lives of the women and children of Iraq and Afghanistan have been horrifically impacted by our militarized foreign policy, and the lives of US military families deeply traumatized, the quality of life here in NYS for ordinary children and their families is being daily eroded by our failure to demand a halt to out of control military expenditure.  It is time that we demand that our leaders look analytically at defense spending  and come to realize that our security as a state and nation lies not in our weapons spending but rather in our commitment to the creation of a just and sustainable way of life for all," said Maureen Aumand of Women Against War.

"We have set an official record with a $700 billion plus dollar military budget for 2009, however, the actual spending for the military, hidden in various budget categories, has increased to over $1 trillion dollars. We spend far more than any other country in the world on the military which is the main cause our national deficit is also the highest on earth," said Doug Bullock, an Albany County Legislator. "This huge expansion of debt coupled with out of control speculation has led us into the current great recession and continuing economic stagnation. According to the Labor Dept., BLS, last year we lost over 700,000 union jobs with the rate of union membership stagnating at 12.3% of the workforce. Our economy and freedom (especially the freedom to have a union) is held hostage to the escalation of the Afghanistan/Pakistan war and continued occupation of Iraq," added Bullock, First Vice President of the Albany Central Federation of Labor.

“Let us ask this question: are we prepared to let children starve both at home and abroad while a bloated military budget grows fatter and fatter?  The choice has become that stark: we cannot fix the economy, feed the world, and combat global warming while the u.s. military gobbles up resources and hopelessly distorts our budget priorities,” said Dan Wilcox of Veterans for Peace.

According to the National Priorities Project (www.nationalpriorities.org), taxpayers in New York will pay $63.2 billion for Total Defense Spending in FY2010.  This sum extracted from NYS taxpayers by out of control defense spending dwarfs the state's $9 billion state budget deficit and is a major factor in the state's high rate of unemployment. For the same amount of money, the following could have been provided:

- 11,652,146 People with Health Care for One Year OR

- 1,219,487 Public Safety Officers for One year OR

- 962,265 Music and Arts Teachers for One Year OR

- 10,310,818 Scholarships for University Students for One Year OR

- 11,810,223 Students receiving Pell Grants of $5350 OR

- 359,174 Affordable Housing Units OR

- 22,079,657 Children with Health Care for One Year OR

- 7,198,894 Head Start Places for Children for One Year OR

- 731,834 Elementary School Teachers for One Year OR

- 118,294,901 Homes with Renewable Electricity for One Year.

The groups noted that New York taxpayers have paid $81.4 billion just for Iraq and Afghanistan war spending since 2001.

“Common sense dictates that it is time that we all addressed the elephant in the middle of the room.  Our spending on the military industrial complex and the endless war it generates is killing the national economy as more than 40 states are now in fiscal crisis.  We are not going to be able to cut our way out of this mess, tax our way out, nor will we be able to ‘grow’ our way out of this.  Unless we cut military spending immediately there will be no serious recovery and no real stabilization of state budget,” Aumand added.

Economists for decades, such as Seymour Melman at Columbia University, have documented that military spending creates fewer jobs than any other investment. This was confirmed by a recent UMASS-Amherst study, “The Employment Effects of Downsizing the U.S. Military”, which found  that for every $1 billion of spending on military production 8,555 jobs are created.  But when that same amount of money is spent on home weatherization 12,804 jobs are created or when spent on education 17,687 jobs result.  http://www.peri.umass.edu/fileadmin/pdf/working_papers/working_papers_151-200/WP152.pdf

“The little reported truth is that military spending is bad for the economy and creates fewer jobs and less tax revenue for state and local government than does other kinds of investment,” said Dunlea.