ACTION ALERT: Tell Washington 
To Cut Wasteful Pentagon Spending
CODEPINK

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Here’s the Full Petition:

Dear President Trump, Elon Musk, and Members of Congress,

The NDAA (National Defense Authorization Act) or Pentagon Budget currently spends nearly $1 trillion worth of our tax dollars on war and militarism. Recently, the Trump Admin has been promising to finally raise that top line over the trillion-dollar mark.

If you’re truly interested in saving taxpayer money the NDAA would be the perfect place to do it. The Pentagon is the poster child of government inefficiency – it has not passed an audit even once. That’s trillions of dollars unaccounted for, and American taxpayers deserve more transparency and accountability than that.

If you want to demonstrate that you care about the people in this country, you could cut the Pentagon budget and use the money to address the needs of our neighbors, friends and family.

Here’s what is at stake: 

• 550,000+ unhoused people in the US.
• 1 in 10 adults in “significant” medical debt
• $195 billion in medical debt held by individuals
• 16.9 % child poverty rate
• 63% of people in the US living paycheck to paycheck

While constituents live paycheck-to-paycheck and drown in debt, how do you justify giving over $1 trillion to the Pentagon, when over half of that money will go directly to private companies? Can you justify giving almost a trillion dollars to a department that hasn’t passed an audit?

As of 2016, nearly a quarter of every tax dollar paid went to military and Pentagon spending. Military contractors pay an average of less than half the federal corporate tax rate. These companies also receive funds from the government through grants, subsidies, and loans.

Between one-quarter and one-third of federal indebtedness is due to war spending. While occupying a massive portion of the United States annual budget, military spending puts us in a dire economic situation.

If we move the money to life-affirming programs such as education, healthcare, and housing, not only will the standard of living increase in the U.S., but we could also create many more meaningful jobs. For the same amount of money spent on clean energy and healthcare, 50% more jobs would be created; and twice as many jobs would be created in education investments.

We demand not only a reduction of Pentagon spending, but an investment in the people’s needs instead of the war machine!

Sincerely,
Toward peace,
CODEPINK