With all the calls for austerity, is there anywhere in the budget where we really can save some money? In my opinion, most of the deficit problems need to be solved by closing tax loopholes that amount to welfare for criminal corporations and the richest 1%, the people Republicans represent, but that’s not a spending cut. The one place in the budget that screams for reform is military spending, with its no-bid contracts, cost overruns, etc. Here’s a big thank you to Lisa G, who emailed me a link to this article by Shane Claiborne with a remarkable video that explains it so simply that the only people who can’t understand will be those so brainwashed that they refuse to understand it.
There’s some interesting talk stirring about how it may be necessary to cut defense expenditures to decrease the deficit. Even though the $533 billion budget is the elephant in the room and the $200,000 spent every minute on the endless war on terror is the gushing, bleeding wound of America, this has been the taboo secret, the idolatrous sacred cow. But folks are beginning to whisper.
Maybe people have grown tired of militarism and war. After all, war hasn’t gotten the best press over the past few years. Maybe the recession has created a desperation that has led us to rethink the status quo, where nearly half of every tax dollar goes to militarism. Maybe we are starting to realize if we don’t stop spending all our money on a defense shield soon we won’t have much left to need to defend. Or maybe it’s all the above, the perfect storm for peace.
As a Christian, I am convinced in the power of non-violence by the greatest nonviolent act in human history: Jesus dying on the cross, even for his enemies. You’d think we Christians would be the hardest folks in the world to convince that violence is necessary, but that hasn’t always been the case. In fact, much of the world seems confused by Christians who are so quick to abandon the cross of Christ and pick up the sword of Rome.
I’m reminded of a dinner conversation I had recently with Ben Cohen, founder of Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream, who has become a friend I deeply admire (and not just because he makes good ice cream). We talked about how this moment in history may very well be perfectly poised for Christians and non-Christians to work together for peace, and to eat some ice cream together with the money we may have spent on guns. And it is Ben who put together one of the coolest demos about the federal budget, using cookies as measuring units to show us how the dollars stack up… [emphasis added]
Inserted from <Huffington Post>
Here’s the video.
Just think. The only reason I’ve been eating B&J is that I think it’s the best ice cream there is.
11 Responses to “Oreos Meet the Defense Budget”
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Currently there are 195 countries on planet Earth. If you were to add up the military spending last year of the 194 of them that don’t happen to be the United States, you’d still have less than what we are spending. Yep, as of 2009 the US of A accounts for 54% of the world’s military expenditure!
Source:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10184610
Yet as hard as it may be to believe, one coalition of peace-loving progressives and deficit hawk conservatives have identified $960 billion of military spending that can be cut over the next ten years:
Additionally, Benjamin Friedman and Christopher Preble from the Cato Institute – that right-wing, libertarian think tank – have proposed cuts in military expenditure that total more than $1.2 trillion over ten years!
Source:
http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=12151
So those who demand deficit reduction and debt control also need to demand that military spending be on the cutting block as well if there’s any hope in accomplishing some fiscal sanity.
Thanks for the great links, Nameless.
To make sure your comments are seen immediately, you might want to split some comments, because any comment with more than two links is held for moderation. Most comments with more than two links are SPAM. You are the wonderful exception to that rule.
Thanks. That a useful tidbit to know.
YVW. 🙂
Nameless,
You always have the greatest links – thank you. I read both of them and they both make total sense. I was surprised by the Cato Institute cuts – good for them! Thanks!
Lisa
Amen to that!
FINALLY, you post something I sent you! I love the cookie thing – I’d seen it a couple of years ago, but I really love the analogy with cookies. This is obviously a couple of years old, when the budget was $400B, but it still proves the point. 😀
Most of the time, I’ve already seen it by by the time you sent it and chosen the day’s articles already. But don’t stop sending. 😀
I think we should get Ben to replace Geithner. Whaddya all think?
oh, and it’s $.53 of every $1 that we spend on defense, now that the war on terra has been added to the budget. In 2004, we just put in on the old Chinese credit card.
Amen to that! At least Democrats put it on budget. Republicans pretended it wasn’t there.