Military Spending

The $750 billion military budget proposed by the Trump Administration for FY2020 is extraordinarily wasteful. House Democrats have proposed a $733 billion budget reflecting an inflationary increase. Expenditures on health, education and social programs, on which the well-being and development of our nation’s children depend, have again been reduced.  The debt incurred for these military expenditures will be borne by future generations.Spending on this scale favors the use of military means to settle conflicts over nonviolent approaches.  British historian Arnold Toynbee wrote: “Militarism has been by far the commonest cause of the breakdown of civilizations. The single art of war makes progress at the expense of all arts of peace.”  He concludes “Of the 22 major civilizations that have appeared in history, 19 of them collapsed when they reached the moral state the United States is in now.”Unlike other agencies, the Pentagon is rarely held accountable for its spending or for the performance and quality of what it purchases.  Cost overruns are generally accepted with little question or consequence.  There are also examples of new, poorly designed and inadequately tested weapon systems that underperform their predecessors.

The Minnesota Peace Project asks that Congress consider the following:

     *     Approve the People’s Budget for FY 2020 introduced by the Congressional

             Progressive Caucus.

      *     Reintroduce the Audit of the Pentagon Act.