Last year Congress increased military spending. It does that every year. But last year it did it in a particularly disturbing way. President Biden asked for a $12 billion increase. Republicans asked for a $25 billion increase beyond that. The Democratic Congress ultimately passed even more than the Republicans had proposed.

This year, Biden has just proposed a $31 billion increase over the total spent last year. In the absence of a major public push for a reduction in military spending, we can expect Republicans to propose a major increase beyond the Biden increase, a handful of progressive Congress Members to mumble something about the proper Biden spending level, and Congress to pass even greater spending on war and war preparations.

Meanwhile, a reduction is favored by the majority of the people who pay for all the wars for "democracy." And we shouldn't be confining our requests of Congress Members to signing letters or sponsoring hopelessly good bills or joining well-named caucuses. We should be insisting that they publicly and emphatically commit to voting No on any bill that funds military spending at more than 90% of the past year's level.

Click here to quickly email your Representative.

Watch and share RootsAction's recent webinar on military spending -- and what could be had instead by redirecting a small fraction of it.

In July 2020, 93 Congress Members voted to cut military spending by 10%. Did they mean it?

If Republicans oppose the upcoming military spending bill (for their own bizarre reasons), it would take only five of those 93 insisting on reduced spending to halt or reshape the bill. Imagine what a credible public commitment by 93 of them right now could do!

Right now there are five cosponsors of a non-binding resolution (H.Res.476) that proposes to move $350 billion out of the Pentagon's budget (roughly a 50% reduction to that portion of military spending).

We've got our work cut out for us. We need to flood Congressional offices with emails and phone calls. Start by clicking here.

Read more about militarism and foreign policy.     

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