Un-Trump the Budget

Check out below the list of people who have come together on this!

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Our environmental and human needs are desperate and urgent. We need to transform our economy, our politics, our policies and our priorities to reflect that reality. That means reversing the flow of our tax dollars, away from war and militarism, and towards funding human and environmental needs, and demanding support for that reversal from all our political leaders at the local, state and national levels.

We and the movements we are part of face multiple crises. Military and climate wars are destroying lives and environments, threatening the planet and creating enormous flows of desperate refugees. Violent racism, Islamophobia, misogyny, homophobia and other hatreds are rising, encouraged by the most powerful voices in Washington DC.

President Trump plans to strip $54 billion from human and environmental spending so as to increase already massive spending on the military. The plan raises Pentagon spending to well over 60 cents of every discretionary dollar in the U.S. budget — even as Trump himself admits that enormous military spending has left the Middle East “far worse than it was 16, 17 years ago.” The wars have not made any of us safer.

Washington’s militarized foreign policy comes home as domestic law enforcement agencies acquire military equipment and training from the Pentagon and from military allies abroad. Impoverished communities of color see and face the power of this equipment regularly, in the on-going domestic wars on drugs and immigrants. This military-grade equipment is distributed and used by many of the same private companies that profit from mass incarceration and mass deportation.

Using just a fraction of the proposed military budget, the US could provide free, top-quality, culturally competent and equitable education from pre-school through college and ensure affordable comprehensive healthcare for all. We could provide wrap-around services for survivors of sexual assault and intimate partner violence; replace mass incarceration with mass employment, assure clean energy and water for all residents and link our cities by new fast trains. We could double non-military U.S. foreign aid, wipe out hunger worldwide. The list of possibilities is long.

Instead, the Trump administration plans to take much of their $54 billion gift for the Pentagon from the budgets of the Environmental Protection Agency (even threatening to shut down its already under-funded environmental justice office), the Department of Health and Human Services (slashing family planning and anti-violence-against-women programs), from the State Department (thus privileging war over diplomacy), and foreign aid (so that the wealthiest country in human history turns its back on the world’s most desperate).

Among those most desperate are the 24 million refugees who have been forced out of their homes and countries, more than at any time since World War II. Instead of cruel Muslim bans and cuts to the already meager number of refugees allowed into the U.S., we should be welcoming far more. Alleviating the refugee crisis also means working to end, rather than escalate, the wars that create refugees, and supporting human rights defenders in their home communities. That means more diplomacy and foreign aid, not more military spending.

With its hundreds of billions of un-audited dollars, the military remains the greatest consumer of petroleum in the United States, and one of the world’s worst polluters. The US needs new green, sustainable jobs across our economy targeted to people facing the highest rates of unemployment and low wages. Military spending results in an economic drain. Clean energy production creates 50% more jobs than the same investment in military spending.

The U.S. military also serves as a security force protecting the extraction and transport of fossil fuels domestically and from the Middle East and other parts of the world. U.S. military force thus enables the continued assault on the planet and some of its most impoverished inhabitants by ensuring the supply of cheap fossil fuels, all while subsidizing some of the largest corporations in the world.

A December 2014 Gallup poll showed people in 65 nations considered the United States far and away the largest threat to peace in the world. If the United States was known for providing clean drinking water, schools, medicine, and solar panels to others, instead of attacking and invading other countries, we would be far more secure and face far less global hostility.

We can do this. Reverse the flow. No walls, No War, No Warming!

Click to sign.

A. Garcia    climbing poetree
Adam Shah    Senior Policy Analyst, Jobs With Justice
Alice Slater    Nuclear Age Peace Foundation
Alice Walker    poet and writer
Angela Kelly
Ann Wright    Veterans for Peace
Annie Leonard    Greenpeace USA
Ash-Lee Woodard Henderson    Highlander Research &a Education Center
Ayesha Gill    IWW
Basav Sen
Barbara Cicalese    Granny Peace Brigade Philadelphia
Beverly Guy-Sheftall    Professor, Spelman College
Bonnie Gorman    Mass. Peace Action
Bonnie Hughes    Berkeley Arts Festival
Rabbi Brant Rosen    American Friends Service Committee
Bill goonan
Bonnie Lockhart    System Change not Climate Change
Brian Trautman    Veterans For Peace
Buzz Davis    Vets for Peace
Carrie Schudda
Chris Kaihatsu    RevLeft (affiliation only)
Chuck Kaufman    National Co-Coordinator, Alliance for Global Justice
Chuck Woolery
Cindy Wiesner    Grassroots Global Justice Alliance
Collin Rees    SustainUS
Corey E. Olsen    CEO Pipe Organs/Golden Ponds Farm
Dara Baldwin    President and CEO of DMADRINA, LLC, Social Justice Policy expert
Daniel Carrillo    Enlace
Dan Gilman    Veterans For Peace
David F. Gassman    System Change not Climate Change
David Hart    New Economy Maryland, Institute for Policy Studies
David McReynolds    former Chair, War Resisters International
David Swanson    author, radio host, co-founder of WarIsACrime.org & World Beyond War
David Schwartzman    DC Statehood Green Party
Dayne Goodwin    Secretary, Wasatch Coalition for Peace and Justice, Salt Lake City
Don Harmon
Ed Bennett
Eddie S. Glaude Jr.    Princeton University
Eve Ensler    V-Day and One Billion Rising
Erich Pica    President, Friends of the Earth
Frank Cordaro    Des Moines Catholic Worker
Felice & Jack Cohen-Joppa    the Nuclear Resister
Gene Keyes
Henry Lowendorf    Greater New Haven Peace Council
George Martin    Liberty Tree Fiundation
Gloria Steinem    Author, feminist
Gregory Cendana    Executive Director of the Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance, AFL-CIO & Executive Committee Member of the National Council of Asian Pacific Americans
Gwyn Kirk    Women for Genuine Security
James Early    Institute for Policy Studies Board Member
j hoegler
Jamie DeMarco    Program for Nuclear Disarmament & Pentagon Spending, Friends Committee on National Legislation
Jane Fonda    actress & activist
Jaron Brown    Grassroots Global Justice Alliance
Jaron Browne    Grassroots Global Justice Alliance
Jay Schaffner    Moderator, Portside
Jeff Cohen    co-founder, RootsAction.org
Jeff Furman    Ben & Jerry’s Board of Directors
Jenny Lynn    California for Progress
Jim Barton
Jo Comerford    Campaign Director, MoveOn.org
Joan Phillips
Joanne Landy    Co-Director, Campaign for Peace and Democracy
Jodie Evans    CODEPINK
Jonathan Boyne
John Kailin    Member, Jewish Voice for Peace
John Cavanagh    Director of the Institute for Policy Studies
John Lindsay-Poland    American Friends Service Committee
John Sellers    Other 98%
Josh Ruebner    Policy Director, US Campaign for Palestinian Rights
Joseph gerson    American Friends Service Committee
Judith LeBlanc    Native Organizers Alliance
Julie Levine    Topanga Peace Alliance and MLK Coalition of Greater Los Angeles
Kathleen A Maloy    Strategic Consulting for Health Equity
Kathy Bradley
Kathy Kelly    Voices for Creative Nonviolence
kathy lipscomb    senior & disablity action
Kathy Spillar
Kelley Ready    Dorchester People for Peace, Congo Action Now
Keith McHenry    Food Not Bombs
Kevin Lindemann
Kevin Martin    President, Peace Action and the Peace Action Education Fund
Kourtney Andar    Veterans For Peace
Kimberle Williams Crenshaw    The African American Policy Forum
Lari Phillips Mussatti    CTA
Laura Flanders    host of The Laura Flanders Show
Leslie Cagan    Peoples Climate Movement NY
Leah Bolger    World Beyond War, Veterans For Peace, Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom
Lindsay Koshgarian    Research Director, National Priorities Project
Lindsey Allen    Executive Director, Rainforest Action Network
Litsa Binder    NJ Peace Action, FCNL, AFSC, Greenpeace
Liz Moore    Peace & Justice Action League of Spokane
Lukas Ross    Climate and Energy Campaigner, Friends of the Earth
Mab Segrest, Southerners on New Ground
Lydia Davis
Madelyn Hoffman    New Jersey Peace Action
Maggie Martin    Co-director of Iraq Veterans Against the War
Marjorie Cohn    National Lawyers Guild.
Mark Almberg
Mark Foreman    Veterans For Peace
Marie Dennis    Co-President, Pax Christi International.
Martha Hennessy    Catholic Worker
Martin Melkonian
Mary Sue Meads
May Boeve    350.org
Medea Benjamin    CODEPINK
Megan Amudson    Women’s Action for New Directions
Mehrene Larudee
Michael Eisenscher    US Labor Against the War
Michael Kaufman    Communities for a Better Environment
Michael T. McPhearson    Veterans For Peace
Michelle Alexander    author of The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Color Blindness
Michelle Dixon    Global Progressive Hub
Michelle Manos    California for Progress
Mike Tidwell    Director, Chesapeake Climate Action Network
Miriam Pemberton    Institute for Policy Studies
M.K.Brussel
Monisha Rios    Veterans For Peace, National Board of Directors
Monique Salhab    Veterans For Peace
Murshed Zaheed    Vice President and Political Director, CREDO Mobile
Nabil Mohammad    ADC
Nadine Bloch    Beautiful Trouble
Naomi Klein    author of This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs the Climate
Nicolas J S Davies    Journalist, Consortium News
Norman Solomon    Co-Founder and Coordinator, RootsAction.org
Olivia Alperstein    Communications and Policy Associate, Progressive Congress
Opal Tometi    Executive Director, Black Alliance for Just Immigration; & Co-Founder, BLM Network
Oscar Chacon    Alianza Americas
Patrick McCann    Veterans For Peace, National Education Association
Paul Shannon    American Friends Service Committee
pedro    Escuela de La Paz
Peter Buffett    American musician, composer, author and philanthropist
Phyllis Bennis    Fellow, Institute for Policy Studies & Director, New Internationalism Project
Rabbi Brant Rosen    American Friends Service Committee
Rafael Jesús González – poet    Xochipilli, Latino Men’s Circle
Richard Greve    Veterans for Peace, Peace Action
Robert Applebaum
Richard (RJ) Eskow    Host, The Zero Hour radio program
Robert Naiman    Just Foreign Policy
Robert Shetterly    Americans Who Tell the Truth
Robert Weissman    Public Citizen
Rosa Clemente    2008 Green Party VP candidate
Rosette M. Bagley    Pax Christi Illinois
Rebecca Vilkomerson    Executive Director, Jewish Voice for Peace
Reece Chenault    National Coordinator, US Labor Against the War
Regina Birchem    Women’s International League for Peace & Freedom
Samina Sundas    Founder, American Muslim Voice Foundation
Saru Jayaraman    Co-Director at Restaurant Opportunities Center United (ROC-United)
Staceyann    Poet
Steph Guilloud    Project South
Stephen Miles    Director of Win Without War
Steve Cobble
Steve Ongerth    IWW, IBU (ILWU), Climate Workers, Railroad Workers United, System Change not Climate Change, and Sunflower Alliance
Tarak Kauff    Veterans For Peace
Terry Kay Rockefeller    September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows
Terry O’Neill    President, National Organization for Women
Thea Paneth    Arlington United for Justice with Peace, United for Peace and Justice
Thenmozhi Soundararajan    Equality Labs
Thomas L Harrison    Campaign for Peace and Democracy
Tom Swan    Connecticut Citizen Action Group (CCAG)
Vince Warren    Exec Director, Center for Constitutional Rights
Alice Slater    WORLD BEYOND WAR
Wendy Thompson    UAW, L. 22
William D. Hartung    Center for International Policy
Winnie Wong    co-founder, People for Bernie
Zillah Eisenstein    writer, anti-racist feminist, International Women’s Strike/US

Join the above signers here:
https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/un-trump-the-budget

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