[Grovenet] The defense Budget

[Eric Canon]

I received this today. Imagine, 42% of the budget
going to the military. What an utter waste.
Here's the text of what I received:

This week the Senate is expected to wrap up
debate on the FY 07 Defense appropriations bill. 
President Bush has proposed a $468.4 billion
defense budget, an amount that exceeds defense
spending during the height of the Cold War and
the Vietnam War.  According to a recent study by
Friends Committee on National Legislation in
Washington, DC (the Quakers), actual spending in
the overall federal budget on war in FY 05 was
$783 billion, and in FY 07 it will top $800
billion.  This represents 42 cents for every tax
dollar collected.  The study and flyer can be
accessed here:

http://www.fcnl.org/budget/?tr=y&auid=1943420

On Wednesday, the President made good on his
party’s pledge to reintroduce the politics of
fear into the fall 2006 election by trotting out
the terror suspects being held in Guantanamo. 
Instead of following this desperate formula for
winning elections, the President and Congress
ought to be considering the moral implications of
spending so much on a national defense budget,
and so little on critical social services and
education here at home.  Especially as the nation
approaches the one-year anniversary of Hurricane
Katrina, a tragedy which continues to reveal the
tattered state of our nation’s social safety net
for low income people, we need a smarter military
budget, not a bigger military budget.

About $9 billion in cuts have been proposed for
the defense budget in the Senate, including
funding for some weapons systems and equipment
that are either unproven or not responsive to the
immediate needs of troops deployed around the
world, especially troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.
  Please e-mail or write your senators and urge
them to support spending cuts in the proposed FY
07 Defense appropriations budget.