WAND on Common Sense Budget Act

<%@LANGUAGE="JAVASCRIPT" CODEPAGE="1252"%> WAND on Common Sense Budget Act

Here comes Tax Day.
How would you like to spend your tax dollars?

Obsolete Cold War weapons systems? or healthcare for children?
Isn't it time for us to use some common sense when making these decisions?

From the desk of WAND Executive Director Susan Shaer

Dear Friend,

As we approach Tax Day, many of us are thinking about how our money will be spent by Congress in the next year. And we're not happy about funding things that just do not make common sense, and do not make us safer or stronger.

So I want to tell you about a new project that WAND is supporting; and I want to ask for your help.

To tell Congress: use common sense in our federal budget!

Right now, our federal budget is seriously out of balance. There are many reasons for this — historical, emotional, financial — but there is no good justification for it at this point in time.

Simply put, the Pentagon gets more than its fair share of the discretionary federal budget. Why do we say this? After all, this is a dangerous time, and we need to do all we can to be safe. We should be paying as much for national security as we need to keep us safe. Unfortunately, this administration's priorities and their budget do the opposite.

The fact is, we are spending far too much money on unnecessary weapons systems that were initiated during the Cold War; and were meant to make us secure against the military machine of the Soviet Union. And at the same time, we are giving short shrift to the things that do make us safe: nuclear nonproliferation, homeland security, strong education.

This doesn’t make sense. In fact, it doesn’t make common sense.

If you were to sit down and take a good hard look at the federal budget, you’d make very different decisions about where to spend our tax dollars.

And that is exactly the idea behind a new initiative in Congress. In March, a new bill was introduced that would make our federal budget more sensible, more pragmatic, and more effective. It’s called (appropriately enough) the Common Sense Budget Act (CSBA).

WAND is joining with other organizations in building a coalition of support around this vitally important effort. We hope you can support us as we seek to spread the word about using good old common sense in setting budget priorities.

Click here to take action!
Send a message to your Members of Congress about the Common Sense Budget Act.
Click here to donate to WAND Education Fund, and support our efforts to spread the word.
Click here to see our fabulous "Not 1040" form to fill out the taxes you'd LIKE to pay. (You can fill it out and send it back to us, too, if you like.)

I hope you agree that this initiative is long overdue, and vitally important. And I hope you’ll be able to support our efforts to promote it with a donation to the WAND Education Fund.

Peace,

Susan Shaer
Executive Director, WAND Education Fund

P.S. This is a great time to donate! If you donate now, your amount will be doubled.
A generous friend has offered to match every donation to this appeal! We hope you can find a way to help us meet the challenge!
(And you won’t see anyone making that offer to the IRS.)

It's a great thing

The Common Sense Budget Act may be the most pragmatic, sensible way to reorder our federal budget priorities that we've ever seen.

CSBA offers a positive vision on how America can invest in our communities without raising taxes or enlarging the deficit.

It would take fifteen percent of the Pentagon’s budget — $60 billion — and redirect it toward things that do make us a safer, stronger country. It offers a plan for America to strengthen our communities, while remaining fiscally responsible to future generations.

Under the CSBA, America would:
1) provide health insurance to all our children who lack it,
2) rebuild America’s crumbling public schools over twelve years,
3) retrain a quarter million workers,
4) cut our reliance on foreign oil in half over ten years,
5) increase funding for homeland security and medical research,
6) save millions of lives in impoverished nations, and
7) begin to reduce the deficit.

Click here to take action!
Send a message to your Members of Congress about the Common Sense Budget Act.
Click here to donate to WAND Education Fund, and support our efforts to spread the word.
Click here to see our fabulous "Not 1040" form to fill out the taxes you'd LIKE to pay. (You can fill it out and send it back to us, too, if you like.)

Thank you so much for your support! Whatever the amount, it is vital to our work, and greatly appreciated.

Women's Action for New Directions
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781-643-6740 | e-mail: info@wand.org