Shortly before 4 a.m. today local time, the last soldiers of the 4th Stryker Brigade, 2nd Infantry
Division crossed the border into Kuwait from Iraq. Seven years and five months after this same unit
participated in the invasion that deposed Saddam Hussein, the last American combat brigade had
left the country.

I’m grateful for those who serve in the military. I’m also reminded of the George McGovern quote:

I’m fed up to the ears with old men dreaming up wars for young men to die in.

The fact that 50,000 Americans and tens of thousands of private contractors will remain in Iraq
for some time to come (indefinitely? Think of Korea, Germany, Japan, etc., to say nothing of
Afghanistan) is, I guess, a difference with a distinction. Those remaining behind won’t be combat
soldiers first and foremost, although they will be in danger of attack and they will accompany Iraqi
soldiers on missions when requested.

A larger question is, what did we accomplish at what cost? Iraq was hell under Saddam Hussein. Iraq is anarchy after Saddam Hussein - an anarchy that oil companies and other profiteers are all too eager to exploit.

And the cost?

4,415 brave American soldiers dead, as of Wednesday. More than 32,000 seriously wounded. More
than 9,000 Iraqi military and police dead. 136 journalists, 51 media support workers and 94 foreign
aid workers killed. Well over 100,000 Iraqi civilian deaths, although the number varies so widely we
may never know how many died.

That’s some cost.

I’ll close with Gandhi:

What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans, and the homeless, whether
the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name
of liberty and democracy?

David Elliot is the Communications Director at USAction

On Saturday, June 26, Americans will gather across the country to discuss the choices we face with regard to spending and the federal budget.

Dozens of town hall forums, sponsored by a non-partisan organization called “America Speaks,” will offer participants an opportunity to discuss our nation’s needs and priorities. Many will use these forums to express concern about the federal deficit.

This is an important topic. In the long run, large deficits are unsustainable and must be addressed. In the short run, however, the forums may not encompass the entire conversation we should be having.

Any conversation about our country’s current and future economic health should start with an acknowledgement of the crisis we now face. And it should continue with an examination of what led to our current economic conditions – including the causes of today’s deficit.

Let’s start by acknowledging painful reality: Our economy has lost eight million jobs. Fifteen million people are officially unemployed while another 11 million are involuntarily working part-time or have dropped out of the labor force. Millions of people have been out of work for more than a year.

Although some would like to focus Saturday’s town hall meetings on the federal budget deficit, let’s also acknowledge the jobs deficit. As we will discuss in a moment, the two are intrinsically linked.

Now let’s examine the cause of our 2010 fiscal year deficit, which the Office of Management and Budget estimates to be $1.1 trillion. The cause is not, as many would have us believe, due to domestic discretionary spending by the federal government. Such spending is more or less stagnant. Rather, the federal deficit finds its roots in four areas:

• First, the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts, targeted primarily toward the wealthiest Americans, added about $1.7 trillion to deficits leading up to 2008.
• Second, the combined cost of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq since our country invaded Afghanistan in late 2001 is just over $1 trillion. These wars, like the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts, were not paid for by new taxes or revenue enhancements in other areas.
• Third, rising health care costs in both the private and public sectors, including entitlement programs such as Medicare and Medicaid, have added trillions of dollars to our deficits over a long period of time. Health care reform will rein these costs in but an aging population will guarantee that providing quality, affordable health care for all will remain an ongoing challenge.
• Fourth, the current economic crisis has deprived governments at all levels of needed revenue. It’s an incontrovertible fact that when people work, they pay taxes. Remove eight million people from the workforce and you haven’t just removed eight million taxpayers – you also have to add in unemployment benefits, COBRA and other forms of public assistance.

That’s the bad news. The good news is that we have the ability to simultaneously address the deficit and take on what should be our nation’s most compelling and urgent priority: putting people back to work.

We can allow the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans to expire. We can cut corporate tax loopholes enjoyed by companies like BP. We can restore the estate tax. We can continue plans to eventually withdraw from Iraq and Afghanistan and, while we’re at it, cut Pentagon waste. Pentagon cost overruns alone are taxing Americans to the tune of $300 billion to $400 billion.

We can immediately stimulate the economy by passing a robust jobs bill and making sure our unemployed workers have the safety net they need in the form of unemployment and COBRA benefits. (Yes, this will add to domestic discretionary spending in the short run, but in the long run we will see a healthy return on our investment in the form of deficit reduction.) A national coalition called Jobs for America Now is pushing for legislation that would create one million jobs.

As Americans gather across the country to discuss spending and the deficit, it’s important that we not lose sight of how we got here and what our needs, hopes and dreams are for our country’s future. That’s the conversation we should be having.

David Elliot is the Communications Director at USAction

More than 80% of U.S. school districts are expected to eliminate jobs in the upcoming school year, an education organization said Tuesday.

Based on a survey of school administrators from 49 states, a total of 275,000 education jobs are expected to be cut in 2011, according to the American Association of School Administrators.

“Faced with continued budgetary constraints, school leaders across the nation are forced to consider an unprecedented level of layoffs that would negatively impact economic recovery and deal a devastating blow to public education,” said AASA Executive Director Dan Domenech.

Many teachers, including my brother, already struggle with large class sizes. These job cuts will make matters worse.

Meanwhile, Defense Secretary Gates recently gave a speech in which he told the Navy, get ready for budget cuts. Those weren’t his exact words, but he definitely questioned Navy spending.

“Do we really need 11 carrier strike groups for another 30 years when no other country has more than one,” Gates told a conference of the Navy League of the United States.

This questioning of “Pentagon pork” is refreshing and necessary.

A program that Secretary Gates and President Obama agree should be cut is the C-17. The only problem is that Congress keeps getting in the way.

“C-17s are large cargo planes produced by Boeing that cost $250 million apiece. Every year since 2006, the Pentagon has said that it has enough C-17s. And every year, Congress overrules the military and authorizes funds for additional planes.”

Take action! Tell Congress to honor the Department of Defense request to stop spending money on the C-17 and other weapons we don’t need, so we can invest that money here at home.

The retirement announcement of Rep. David Obey (D-WI) was big news this week for a lot of reasons, but you haven’t yet heard about one of the biggest. This could be a disaster for those of us who want to spend our taxes building schools and strengthening the country instead of handing out pork to weapons industry lobbyists.

The committee Obey controls, Appropriations, is the most powerful in the entire Congress, and after 41 years in office he left quite a mark. Although often inscrutable, he was fair and kept many domestic priorities off the chopping block. Who will replace Obey in that key money-spending spot?

The worst outcome would be that a pro-Republican tide in the 2010 elections shifts control of the House back to that party. Since the party in power gets to pick the committee chairs, it’s all but certain that Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-CA) would happily retrieve the gavel he held before Obey took over. But equally bad would be the success of the likely *Democrat*, Norm Dicks of Washington.

The thick-necked Dicks is next in the line of seniority in the committee. He also just took the gavel of the Defense Subcommittee of the Appropriations Committee.
If that 52-letter title has your eyes glazing over, remember that THIS is the place in Congress where decisions are made about spending hundreds of billions of tax dollars to build complex weapons systems the military doesn’t want.

It is a frightening prospect for advocates of a smaller defense budget to imagine “Mr. Boeing” as the head of the ENTIRE appropriations process - the fox in charge of the chicken house. Victories for common sense such as last year’s hard-won battle to finally end the useless F-22 jet project would be rare indeed with Rep. Dicks running the show.

There is hope, though. Although seniority position matters, so does a Representative’s relationship with Nancy Pelosi; so Dicks will have to fight for the top spot. Already, Pennsylvania member Chaka Fattah has thrown his hat into the ring - a true progressive Congressmember.

Fattah is even a member of the Out of Iraq caucus in the House. Wouldn’t we all love to see what the next debate on a supplemental war funding bill would look like with HIM chairing the process?

Stay tuned for developments. This is the “inside baseball” which ends up determining where hundreds of billions of your taxes go, for decades to come.

As Sarah wrote yesterday USAction affiliates and partners, alongside allies from Jobs with Justice and others in Jobs for America Now held “more than 40 tax day events to call for policies that create jobs and hold Wall Street accountable.”  These events made clear that there is activism, anger and a desire for change, but much like the protests leading up to the war in Iraq, the media simply refuses to recognize Americans’ desire for progressive policies and values in Washington D.C.  Yesterday people made clear that they want fair and responsible taxation, public job creation and common sense investments in society that invest in job creation and national priorities instead of Wall Street and the Military Industrial Complex.

USAction affiliate West Virginia Citizen Action Group held a public education rally yesterday to highlight the outsized portion of our tax dollars that go to the military budget.  The groups brought along an extra-large All American Apple Pie (right) with the 52% of funding for Military expenses demarcated.

Rev. Jim Lewis, the spokesperson for the groups, had the following to say about what happens to West Virginians’ tax dollars and what that says about our values and priorities as a nation.

“West Virginia’s share of this tax burden ($1.9 million) could provide 604,603 people with health care for one year; 429,725 scholarships for one year, 27,218 affordable housing units, or 38,711 elementary school teachers for one year. Instead we are spending these dollars to kill people in our names, while mortgaging the future for our children and grandchildren.”

In Seattle USAction affiliate Washington Community Action Network and members of Organizations United for Reform Washington marched into the Bank of America 5th Avenue Plaza, chanting “Predatory Leader, Criminal Offender!” The crowd proceeded to sit-in the lobby until the police were called.  The event also recieved coverage via Komo News.

Angela O’Brien, a member leader of Washington Community Action Network, spoke at the event and was interviewed by media. She had this to offer to Bank of America:

“Today I will close my account with Bank of America… I need to put my money in a local credit union where I know I’m protected from sneaky charges, where I know that they aren’t going to use my money to profit off people’s misery.” O’Brien said she’s most likely going to go with BECU (A Washington State Credit Union).

In Rhode Island USAction affiliate Ocean State Action spoke with community members at the main branch of the Providence Post Office about the need for progressive tax reform to create jobs (repealing tax cuts for the wealthy and closing corporate tax loopholes), invest in rebuilding America and the need to cut our bloated military budget.  The activists leafleted throughout the day and held a brief press conference.  The speakers included Daniel Bass from OSA, Joe Renzi from UFCW Local 328, and Martha Yager of the American Friends Service Committee.

In Maryland USAction affiliate Progressive Maryland, as a member of the “Heart of Maryland” coalition, comprising non-profit, labor, and progressive groups in Maryland, presented a fine free lunch — lobster on a silver platter — to the Maryland Chamber of Commerce at its state headquarters in Annapolis. From the press release “The free lunch symbolizes the attitude of the Maryland Chamber of Commerce and the large out-of-state corporations that it represents, a significant proportion of which pay not a single penny in state income tax each year on the profits that they earn in our state.”

The Heart of Maryland coalition released new data from the Comptroller of Marlyand showing that one-third of corporations in Maryland paid “absolutely nothing in state income tax in 2007.”  The coalition’s statement continues,

“These free-loading out-of-state corporations benefit from Maryland’s education and infrastructure, from our workforce and quality of life, yet they apparently believe that they deserve to enjoy those benefits without paying for them themselves, relying on the generosity of Maryland residents and locally-based businesses who do pay their taxes.”

Patrick Moran, Director of AFSCME-Maryland, noted that 23 other states have put a stop to these kinds of tax avoidance maneuvers via legislation known as Combined Reporting.  Moran put these absurd tax breaks for corporations into perspective,

“Given these tough times, given that state employees have been furloughed again and again, and given recent budget slashes that cut vital services down to the bone, this is outrageous and unacceptable. In fact, the cuts to state government have been so severe that the federal government had to step in and order Maryland to hire more social service workers to process food stamp applications.”

President Obama Wednesday night failed to lay out a jobs program robust enough to extricate the country from its unemployment crisis and his proposal to cap domestic spending would lead the nation in the wrong direction, USAction said today.

 At the same time, USAction expressed support for Obama’s determination to pass health care reform and announced that its 27 state affiliates and partners will continue to press Congress on the issue.

  ”We are pleased that the President understands the urgency in passing health care reform this year,” said Alan Charney, USAction Program Director. “But we are disappointed that he did not propose a jobs program that is as massive and robust as the problem he inherited. And a freeze on domestic spending at this time takes us in the wrong direction. Spending caps never created a single job, cared for a sick child or kept a family in its home by staving off home foreclosure.”

 Charney added that the savings we would gain from Obama’s proposal to freeze domestic spending is dwarfed by the hundreds of billions of dollars the country is spending to escalate the war in Afghanistan.

USAction is a multi-issue organization that believes government should play a key role in promoting opportunity, prosperity and security for all Americans. USAction’s agenda in 2010 includes health care reform, jobs and economic recovery, effective financial regulation, fair tax policies and bringing a responsible end to the war in Afghanistan.

 USAction has helped organize Jobs for America Now, a coalition of 64 national groups that is working to address the jobs crisis. Jobs for America Now - and USAction - believe that only significant government intervention, including jobs programs, tax incentives for small businesses and aid to state and local government, will help America extricate herself from this crisis.

 Today, USAction’s Charney will participate in a 3 p.m. webinar sponsored by Jobs for America Now. Nearly 700 activists from across the United States have registered for the webinar, which will lay out the causes behind the jobless crisis, how to solve it and action steps that Jobs for America Now is planning. To register, please visit www.bostonconference.com/chn.

David Elliot is the Communications Director at USAction.

President Obama makes his first State of the Union address tomorrow night, and he’s going to call for us to cap spending on everything EXCEPT the military.

Getting a grip on the deficit is fine. But spending on war and weapons is the FIRST place we should look to save money, not the LAST.  Obama’s priorities are backwards, and there’s something you can do about it.

Congress gets the final vote on how to spend tax dollars. And their reaction to the State of the Union – whether they clap or shout ‘you lie!’ – is an important first barometer of opinion.

So let’s tell Congress not to clap when Obama proposes spending $100 billion on the war in Afghanistan while freezing spending on everything else.

http://act.truemajorityaction.org/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=53

Once you’ve told your members of Congress to not applaud for war, make sure to tune in tomorrow night.

Asking members not to clap may seem like a very small action to stop a very big war. But the reaction to this speech is critical. How Congress reacts, and what they react to, will dominate the news after the speech.

If we watch closely, this will show who’s with us on ending the war, and who’s still willing to spend more on Afghanistan than on educating our children, fixing health care or creating jobs.

Tell your members of Congress that you’ll be watching, and you’ll thank them not to applaud a war in Afghanistan.

-Matt

Matt Holland
Online Director
TrueMajority / USAction

You can sign up to receive alerts from TrueMajority here.

As an ordained minister of the United Church of Christ, I am deeply disappointed in President Obama’s decision to send 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan. We had a tremendous opportunity to bring about a fundamental change from the previous administration. We elected a President who was notable in part because he courageously opposed a war of choice. This escalation in troops promises only an escalation in violence and loss, with no clear end in sight. It is not the “new way forward” that we need.

At a time when Americans face a sustained period of 10% unemployment nationwide—and much higher levels amongst African-Americans, Latinos, and youth—we simply cannot afford to waste $100 billion, and probably more, on an un-winnable war. We cannot afford to send more contractors (who outnumber our troops there), build more prisons and bases, or buy off local warlords. We cannot afford to occupy another country. We need to focus on investing in America’s future. And there are also other, incalculable costs: the death and trauma of U.S. soldiers and Afghan civilians. What are these costs for?

“The more fundamental questions are asked, the more people are distraught. What is our mission, why are we there, how many troops, what is the cost, what is the exit strategy?” That’s what Robert Greenwald, of Rethink Afghanistan, said at our press conference yesterday with Representative Alan Grayson.

The costs are too high, and the mission is not clear enough. Is the threat from al Qaeda? They have only a few people in Afghanistan. Three months ago, General McChrystal said, “I do not see indications of a large al Qaeda presence in Afghanistan now.” Army Specialist Matthew Justice, who served in the army for six years and spent nine months in Afghanistan dismantling roadside bombs, taking part in over 100 combat missions, said yesterday about his service in Afghanistan:

“Never while my life was in danger did I feel as if I were avenging those lost in the attacks on 9/11, nor did I feel my efforts were contributing to my nation’s safety. I find it absurd that we should deepen our commitment to this war of choice.”

What are we really there for? The journalist Nir Rosen points out: “President Obama asks how our strategy serves U.S. security, but McChrystal’s report answered a different question: how can Afghanistan control its territory?”

Is it possible to secure Afghanistan? Afghanistan has an utterly corrupt and ineffectual central government. It has a history and culture of resistance to centralized government and control. Its population is decentralized and rural, which makes protecting it difficult. It is dominated by an opium economy that is tied to President Karzai, our alleged “partner.” It is the second poorest country in the world, with an extraordinarily high illiteracy rate. These are some of the fundamental problems that our policy ignores. They make a difference. Even with the plans to build a 400,000 strong Afghan police force, it would require a justice system to be effective – with judges, lawyers, prisons, and administration. Who will keep records? Police without a legal system become the law themselves.

And even if we do fully secure Afghanistan, what about Pakistan? We simply do not have the power to secure all the ungoverned or loosely controlled places on earth, whether they are in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, or elsewhere. There is no end.

We have to face the reality of what can be achieved in Afghanistan. There is no military solution to this situation. This escalation is more likely to make things worse: “Sending U.S. troops to fight interminable wars in distant countries does more to inflame than to extinguish the resentments giving rise to violent anti-Western jihadism.”

A new way forward is one that focuses on the root causes of violence, such as poverty, corruption, and injustice. We can address these challenges, if we have the courage to change our strategy in Afghanistan.

Marvin Silver is Deputy Legislative and Policy Director at USAction.

Originally posted at the Ellsworth County Independent/Reporter

Friday, October 23, 2009

By MATT HOLLAND

Let’s suppose you are a typical family and you’re managing your monthly budget. The average American family spends $1,100 on housing, $600 on transportation, $450 on food, and $200 on health care.

And let’s say on top of these typical expenses you’re paying $1,400 to maintain the Army tank you keep in your back yard. You don’t really need the tank. You never drive the tank. And the $16,800 you’re paying a year to maintain the tank you don’t need and never drive is sapping your family’s financial future, threatening everything from your ability to pay for your children’s college education, to meeting health care expenses, to saving for the future.

Welcome to the federal budget. This year, of the money that Congress and the president choose to spend—often called the discretionary budget—just over half, or about $693 billion, will go to the military. By comparison, $59 billion will be spent on education; $50 billion on children’s health insurance; and $8 billion on the Environmental Protection Agency. And the $693 billion on military spending doesn’t even include money spent on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Our military spending dwarfs that of Russia, which is no longer a Cold War rival. And it squashes the military budget of China, which is now a major trading partner. In fact, our military budget is equal to the combined military budgets of the next 15 countries behind us.

To be sure, unlike that tank in your back yard, a lot of this spending is necessary. We live in a dangerous era and there are those who would do us harm. And we have responsibilities to allies around the world. But to quote former President Dwight Eisenhower, the former Supreme Allied Commander of World War II: We must not pay one cent more for defense than we have to.

But what constitutes wasteful Pentagon spending? Here are some prime—and expensive—examples:

The F-22 Raptor Fighter Jet. The Air Force itself no longer favors continued production of the F-22, and both President Barack Obama and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates oppose it. The jet was designed for defense against the old Soviet Union, but has never flown in combat. Each jet costs $339 million.

Missile defense. We’ve spent $150 billion on missile defense since former President Ronald Reagan gave his famous “Star Wars” defense speech. Technology has changed since then, and the types of systems we’ve been developing don’t work. Rather than throw good money after bad, we should invest in research to determine whether missile defense is even feasible and if so, what kinds of systems should be developed.

The C-17 cargo plane. We already have 205 C-17 cargo planes available or on order. This program was scheduled to end in 2009, but was continued after intense lobbying by Boeing, the manufacturer. Just this month, Congressional leaders authorized $2.5 billion for eight more.

This is only the tip of the iceberg—we’re spending billions and billions of dollars every year on unnecessary and obsolete weapons systems that do nothing to make our nation more secure, yet saddle generations to come with mountains of debt.

Why? Campaign largesse. The 18 lawmakers who serve on the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense last year inserted more than $335 million in earmarks into the defense spending bill on behalf of their campaign contributors. Those contributors donated $1.3 million to members who sponsored their earmarks.

The good news is we now have a president and a defense secretary who are willing to stand up to unscrupulous defense contractors and those who would do their bidding. Obama and Gates have brought common sense to military spending, proposing the elimination of programs that don’t work or are obsolete and allocating resources to adapt to modern welfare.

This fresh approach will free up resources for other areas of the budget, such as health care, education, energy independence, and various urgent needs. It’s time we demand that Congress act responsibility and trim the pork from the military budget.

Matt Holland is director of TrueMajority.org, the online department of USAction.