If you missed the speech (maybe watching the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show – what an adorable winner) or want to review it again, please see the transcript here.

Overall the agenda that the President laid out looks pretty bold and wonderful to us at WAND and here is a sampling of a few things we especially liked:

• We agree that looming automatic “sequester” cuts are bad and especially agree that “some in this Congress have proposed preventing only the defense cuts by making even bigger cuts to things like education and job training; Medicare and Social Security benefits.  That idea is even worse.”
• We really like the commitment to provide high-quality preschool for every child. Maybe we’ll send the President one of our “Children Ask the World of Us” posters. We liked many other new efforts supporting education and jobs and needed investments – including raising the minimum wage and increasing the number of high-tech investment hubs. Analysts have been wondering where the funds for these new investments will come from – especially since the President promised not to add to the deficit.  We’re a bit curious about this too but would like to recommend one good place to look for cost savings: the Pentagon.
• When it comes to Afghanistan, we are glad to hear the President’s intent to remove 34,000 troops during this year, but note that still leaves too many. Further, as the transition in Afghanistan moves forward, it is essential to plan how to help Afghanistan create a sustainable peace. One necessary ingredient is the leadership of Afghan women in this peace building effort.
• We were glad that the President highlighted (at least briefly) commitments to reduce nuclear weapons: “We will engage Russia to seek further reductions in our nuclear arsenals, and continue leading the global effort to secure nuclear materials that could fall into the wrong hands – because our ability to influence others depends on our willingness to lead.”  Indeed, and part of our leadership should be moving forward to ratify the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) enabling us to more effectively lead in detecting, deterring and confronting nuclear tests like those recently conducted in North Korea.
• It was great that the President noted the Senate’s recent passage of the Violence Against Women Act and called upon the House to do the same. We hope for swift reauthorization of VAWA this year.

The President ended by noting that as citizens, we all have obligations: “Well into our third century as a nation, it remains the task of us all, as citizens of these United States, to be the authors of the next great chapter in our American story.” As WAND women we are ready to take on the role of citizen authors again this year as we work for sound budget priorities for a safe, secure and thriving America.

Many of WAND/WiLL Women in Congress commented on the President’s State of the Union Speech, to see a sampling of these click here.

Published: August 30, 2012 by The Worcester Telegram & Gazette

Labor Day and school openings seem to go together. For me, it’s time for the social welfare policy course I teach at the Boston University School of Social Work each fall. Throughout the semester I will hear stories from students about their clients who desperately need jobs, housing, education, food, and health care.

Evidence the students present will show that the services and programs designed to help them climb out of poverty continue to dwindle. The narratives are heartbreaking, and often horrific. They are accounts of people who would do anything to improve their lives, make changes, and leave the poverty, hunger, homelessness, joblessness, and loneliness behind.

When, in 1894, Congress enacted legislation making Labor Day a national holiday, the intention was to celebrate the social and economic achievements of American workers and the contributions workers have made to the prosperity and well-being of our country. The hard truth is that our current national unemployment rate is 8.3 percent. Not all Americans who want to work are working and almost one in four American children is living below our national poverty line. Things clearly need to improve in this country for the unemployed and the working poor in order for all of us to truly be able to celebrate the intended meaning of Labor Day.

These sobering statistics can change if we reprioritize how we spend our federal dollars. Two minutes’ worth of federal spending on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan would pay for two high school graduates to attend Boston University for four years each. Two minutes of war. Two undergraduate degrees.

The $16.6 billion in taxes from Massachusetts that went into the Department of Defense’s FY2012 budget could have funded 1.9 million Head Start slots in Massachusetts for a year. Currently, more than 20,000 children who should be enrolled in Head Start in Massachusetts, are not.

Taxpayers in Boston paid $1.3 billion toward the FY2012 Department of Defense budget. For the same amount of money, more than 16,000 Boston elementary school teachers could be hired full-time for one entire school year.

Some say cutting the Pentagon budget means military industrial complex jobs will be lost. However, a shift in dollars to create jobs in other employment sectors would both increase the number of jobs and employed Americans, as well as increase the value of those jobs to our country. This makes good political and economic sense.

The University of Massachusetts Political Economy Research Institute studied how many jobs could be created with $1billion of federal spending; the reality is that investing our tax dollars in education, health care, mass transit, weatherization, or middle-class tax cuts, creates more jobs than Pentagon spending does.

We are spending more than $30 billion per year to maintain our oversized and outdated nuclear weapons arsenal. There are many expensive weapons that the Pentagon does not need or want, but Congress votes to keep the funds flowing anyway. There are ridiculous cost overruns and wasteful spending on military contractors. Procurement scandals are almost the rule rather than the exception.

This spring, Americans learned of a $17,000 oil pan made by a politically connected defense contractor. Defense lobbyists work for corporate self-interests that result in congressional dysfunction.

Congress needs to stop appropriating limited dollars as pork for well-heeled defense industry contractors.

With automatic “sequester” cuts (a plan to cut federal spending over the next decade) scheduled to go into effect in January 2013, it is time to critically examine our Pentagon budget. It makes up 56 percent of federal discretionary spending and has increased every year since 1998.

Some members of Congress want to exempt the Pentagon budget while domestic programs like public education, mass transit, medical research and clean energy are slashed even further. It is far more important to our security to ensure that our economy is prospering through job creation based on innovation and entrepreneurship, than it is to stockpile nuclear weapons and line the pockets of overpaid defense contractors.

This Labor Day, let’s celebrate our economic achievements as a nation, as we have many. Let’s also shift our priorities as a nation. Let’s move forward with a budget and spending plan that is driven by American values like hard work, equal opportunity, humanitarianism and democracy. Let’s get people trained and retrained, and employed and better employed. Let’s pay for programs and projects that help get people out of poverty and into jobs.

And let’s put an end to this outdated, excessive, militarized spending.

Sharon Zimmerman is the deputy director of Women’s Action for New Directions (WAND), an adjunct professor at the Boston University School of Social Work, and sits on the board of Greater Boston’s Association of Parents, Friends and Families of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG).

Time to hold a magnifying glass to national security spending

This Fourth of July, as we celebrate our nation’s independence, we need to think about what programs will do the most to guarantee our freedom and strength for years to come. Our nation‘s Pentagon budget has grown unchecked since 1998 at a cost of trillions of dollars to taxpayers. And now the news from Washington is devastating, draconian cuts to essential investments while the Pentagon gets yet another boost.

Pentagon spending includes spending on wars, nuclear weapons, and military construction. Our nation’s greatness and future security are not served by a bloated nuclear arsenal, unnecessary weapons systems, and endless war. Our future will be best served with investments in education, jobs, healthcare, science and technology and a clean environment. To make those cuts we must cut bloated Pentagon spending.

As president of the Women Legislators’ Lobby (WiLL) and a Georgia State Senator, I work with a network of women from across the country. My fellow state legislators are battling budget shortfalls year after year. After 9-11, state budgets have taken on massive new costs for homeland security measures. National Guard and other returning veterans need state and local services. The women state legislators who are a part of WiLL understand that increases in Pentagon spending mean their strapped state budgets get further shortchanged. With the impacts of this great recession and the end of stimulus funding, states cannot afford the devastating cuts that would come with the Ryan Budget or the planned sequestration cuts to nondefense spending.

The Ryan budget increases Pentagon spending for the coming year by $8 billion more than what was agreed to last August in the Budget Control Act. That difference would be paid for by slashing even further every other funding priority.

The House approach also exempts the Pentagon from the looming automatic sequestration cuts by taking more from all of the other programs and investments. Congress will have to slash from k-12 and higher education, national parks and clean water programs, medical and scientific research, clean energy – you name it. Everything would be cut while the Pentagon trough gets filled.

We all want a common defense that works. We agree that veterans and their families deserve the best in recognition of their sacrifice. They also deserve to come home to a strong, vibrant economy with plenty of job opportunities.

What we don’t want are redundant and unnecessary weapons that don’t address today’s security needs, mismanaged projects that go far over budget due to lack of Pentagon audit, and defense industry lobbyists lining their coffers at our expense. Former Defense Secretary Gates says, “We can't hold ourselves exempt from the belt-tightening. Neither can we allow ourselves to contribute to the very debt that puts our long-term security at risk."

What we do want are jobs. Some claim that cutting excessive Pentagon spending means losing good jobs. On the contrary, economic studies have shown that federal investments in any other category, including education, healthcare, or clean energy, create more jobs than federal dollars spent in the military sector. These are the sustainable jobs that we need for our future. Let’s choose teachers, doctors, nurses, first responders, home weatherization, and wind turbines over building bombs that we don’t need and can’t afford.

It’s time to hold a magnifying glass to Pentagon spending. Other domestic spending is equally important to the future of our nation. Jobs, education, health care, a clean environment, safe roads and bridges and mass transit, are all a part of our national security.  These are essential components of fulfilling our nation’s obligation to secure a bright future for America.

Many domestic, religious and nonprofit groups agree and are speaking up. Even fiscally responsible conservatives are mobilizing. If we are ever to rid ourselves of ghastly cost overruns, end exorbitant contractor fees, stop no-bid contracts, and massive, unnecessary weapons systems, shouldn’t we hold the Pentagon accountable for its spending?

Congress must responsibly reduce Pentagon spending. This Independence Day, we will truly let freedom ring if we have a budget that makes investments in the future rather than continuing wasteful Pentagon spending. Let’s send that message to our members of congress.

-Nan Grogan Orrock, WiLL President and state senator in Georgia

Read Susan's op-ed and remember that, even during these difficult times, we are truly fortunate.

Cut Out Last-Century Defense Spending

October 4, 2011

Women’s Action for New Directions (WAND) has been working for thirty years to redirect excessive military spending to unmet human and environmental needs. Now as Washington takes aim at deficit reduction, lawmakers are targeting vital programs that sustain America.  What is not being scrutinized for spending cuts? The Pentagon budget that makes up over half of annual discretionary spending.  This is not fair, and not effective. Worse, much of the unchecked Pentagon spending is directed at last-century strategies, leaving us vulnerable as we fail to address 21^st century security needs. Pentagon spending discipline is needed to contribute to deficit reduction and to maintain our nation’s strength and security. We have some ideas about where specific cuts could be made. Here are three examples.

1.  Stop Sinking Dollars into Nuclear Submarines:
   News flash – the Cold War is over. Yet, twenty years after the fall of the Berlin wall, the United States plans to spend an estimated $700 billion on nuclear weapons and related costs in the coming decade. There are now about 5,000 nuclear weapons in the U.S. arsenal deliverable by land, air and sea, including 12 nuclear submarines that are out cruising the world’s oceans at any given time.  With each one carrying multiple nuclear warheads, a single submarine is capable of destroying all major cities in Russia and China.  The plan is to replace the submarine fleet, maintaining this overkill capability into the middle of the next century at a lifecycle cost of nearly $350 billion..
2.   Stop Amassing Huge Armed Forces Abroad and Cut Contractors:
   Since 9/11 troop levels have increased by 118,500 soldiers and marines. The Bush Administration agreed with the Iraqi government to withdraw all U.S troops from Iraq by the end of 2011. The Obama Administration promised to complete the withdrawal of all U.S. armed forces from Afghanistan by the end of 2014.  These pledges should be fulfilled. As we are getting out of Iraq and Afghanistan it is time to cut the size of ground forces.  Further, do we really need to maintain the 80,000 active-duty personnel stationed in Europe? Not all personnel costs come from men and women in uniform -- a staggering amount of Pentagon spending goes to contractors. We recommend a reduction of at least 10% in Department of Defense related contracts. 
3.  Stop Frittering Funds on the Joint Strike Fighter:
   The Joint Strike Fighter is the poster child of how weapons systems contracts get out of hand.  With multiple plane designs, built by multiple contractors in Congressional Districts all over the country – spending boondoggles are proliferating like bunnies. Beyond cost growth, the joint Strike fighters have performance and reliability issues.  Do we need them at all?  We already have lower cost planes like the F-16 and the F/A0-18. The Congressional Budget Office and others agree that those planes can more than do the job. See also Sayre Speaks: A  Plane Costing As Much As A War?

To download these recommendations as a PDF, please go here: Recommendations for Deficit Reductions