Military Budget...Kucinich, Military Industrial Complex

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http://www2.kucinich.us/issues/militarybudget.php

April 2006

This budget chooses war over health care, tax cuts over education, special interests over the needs of the nation, and rich over poor.

Few politicians have the courage to raise the obvious questions of the military industrial complex that President Dwight Eisenhower warned us about and which no one else seems to see. While we spend approximately what the rest of the world combined does on their military (with most of the big spending nations our allies!), we have tremendous waste. While many retired generals and admirals have stated that at least 15% waste could be cut from past military budgets, politicians seem to panic when the administration refers to the military budget as our "security" budget.

Militarism not only invites military solutions to diplomatic problems, but also destroys the economic dreams of countless families and ultimately sabotages our entire economy, as Chalmers Johnson points out in The Sorrows of Empire..."


April 28, 2006, Daytona Beach News-Journal (Florida)

$60 Billion for Real Security: Dent in the Military-Industrial Complex?

By Jack Shanahan

"We have failed to discard the outmoded 'force on force' military philosophy driving today's military thinking, planning and spending. So we end up with fighter jets at $320 million a copy, $3 billion submarines, $13.5 billion aircraft carriers. Try to connect the dots between these weapons and what is needed to fight guerrillas, terrorists and fringe religious fanatics. Don't spend too long trying to connect the dots. They don't connect. It's plain irrational, and it's all driven by the confluence of power among members of Congress, the president, and powerful defense contractors and their lobbyists. That's the group President Dwight D. Eisenhower aptly labeled the military-industrial complex so many years ago. It's the military industrial complex that drives senseless Pentagon spending. To feed the military industrial complex, we are under-funding education for our children, under-funding health care for millions of Americans, under-funding environmental needs and much more. In turn, this is threatening the quality of life for most Americans and adversely affecting our ability to compete globally. That's bad for national security. Passage of Woolsey's bill, called the Common Sense Budget Act, would also eventually level the slippery slope the military industrial complex has put this nation on. And that's really good for national security."

Jack Shanahan, a retired Navy vice admiral, lives in Ormond Beach. He heads the Military Advisory Committee of Business Leaders for Sensible Priorities.

We must cut bloated and unneeded weaponry from a military budget that now almost equals the military spending of all other countries combined. The resulting peace dividend can then be invested in education, health care, environmental clean-up, urban infrastructure, Social Security, veterans' benefits, and other pressing domestic needs."

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1. Kucinich Says Cut Bloated Pentagon Budget To Fund Education

He has been consistent in his calls for reducing the Pentagon budget and using that money for other purposes.


http://www.commondreams.org/news2003/0709-06.htm

"WASHINGTON - July 9 - Congressman Dennis J. Kucinich (D-OH), today, took to the House floor during debate on an education bill to challenge the budget priorities of the Administration and the Republican majority in the Congress. While all Members of Congress agree on the importance of education, it is clear that funding for education is being shortchanged by a bloated Pentagon budget.
Kucinich, Co-Chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, issued the following statement:

"We will pass this bill today, the Ready to Teach Act, and in doing so, we all agree that the country needs the federal government to spend $300 million on teacher preparation and retention. But in fact, we won't spend that much on teacher preparation and retention. The President has asked that we spend only $90 million, or 30 percent of what we today all agree is necessary. Why?

"Yesterday we passed a Defense spending bill that spends $8.9 billion on the National Missile Defense system that doesn't work, and today we will pass an education bill that, if fully funded, would work. But we won't fully fund it.

"There is money for education. We could re-allocate the $8.9 billion for missile defense and put it into education. We'd have money to hire and train thousands more qualified teachers. We'd have money to buy 9 million new computers for our children and schools. We'd have the money to fully fund and expand the Head Start program, IDEA, and The No Child Left Behind Act.

"Instead, we are spending too much -- $8.9 billion - for a missile defense program that won't work, and we're under-funding the education account.

"Americans need to know the trade-offs when we give tax cuts to millionaires and billions to programs that don't work. National Missile Defense doesn't work. Teachers do. They work for our children, they work for America, and they work for our future."