2009 March Bulletin

First of all, we give you this:
"We'll... reform our defense budget so that we're not paying for Cold War-era weapons systems we don't use." (President Obama, 2/24/09)

Then, we give you the actual budget proposal for FY10:
Could be worse. Could be better. It's certainly taking steps in the right direction...

It wasn't detailed, but it did reveal quite a bit of information. Some things we can tell you:

• The military budget weighs in at about $557 billion (that's Department of Defense plus nuclear weapons and some other military things). Almost HALF the discretionary budget (49%). And no matter how you slice it, a whole lotta money. (And, don't forget, this does NOT pay for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; that comes from supplemental appropriations, which clock in at $130 billion in FY10.)
  
• Yes, it's an increase over last year's amount. The previous military budget was $541 billion. If you break it down, you have an inflationary increase, plus an extra $9 billion. (The good news is that the Bush proposed budget would have been over $600 billion.)
  
• HOWEVER... it IS a smaller than average increase than we had over the past eight years. So it's not a decrease -- but it does start a trend toward slowing the growth, and hopefully one day actually trimming the size of the military slice.

We welcome you to watch this video on CNN that covers the idea of jobs and the military. For years, we've been saying that investing our tax dollars in projects other than the military would create more jobs. CNN cites a study about job creation from the University of Massachusetts that came about thanks to our efforts.

Also listen to this story on NPR about the F-22 Raptor and jobs.

Action Guide from WAND: Finding New Ways to Create Jobs The military industry stays in business because it creates millions of jobs. But other projects can do even better. It's time to reinvest our public monies.

Acknowledging that Obama does plan to save hundreds of billions of dollars by withdrawing from Iraq, Frank said the President must go further and take big whacks at big-ticket military projects. He pointed to programs like the Air Force's F-22 fighter, the Osprey troop transport, and missile defense as expensive, unnecessary Cold War-era boondoggles. He singled out missile defense in Eastern Europe as a particularly wasteful use of American taxpayers' money.

"Left entirely on our own, the Congress will not do the cuts in the military budget that ought to be there."
So we need your help in building the groundswell!

Sign the call for a world free from nuclear weapons. Sign the petition here.

"We call upon the President of the United States to make a world free of nuclear weapons an urgent priority and to assure U.S. leadership to realize this goal."

We don't have all the news on nukes in the budget, but it does look like the death knell has sounded for the nuclear "Reliable Replacement Warhead." This is great news! WAND, and the arms control community, spent a lot of time and energy in reaching out to Congress year after year, to convince them that the last thing we need are new nuclear weapons.

What a breath of fresh air: an administration that recognizes that money is better spent on reducing the real threats from nuclear weapons: unsecured nuclear materials, proliferation of nukes, potential terrorist attacks.

A coalition of citizens groups and progressive House Members just saved the American taxpayers a whole lot of money. They eliminated from the stimulus bill $1 billion dollars for nuclear weapons work the Senate had stuffed in.

After discovering the bonus the Senate would give the National Nuclear Security Administration (a 10% increase in their annual budget), your friendly neighborhood arms control groups sprang into action. Over twenty organizations including the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability, the evangelical group Faithful Security, the Friends Committee on National Legislation, the Project on Government Oversight and Women's Action for New Directions worked the Hill with citizen groups across the country to strip the funding from the final bill.

Read the successful letter signed by 22 groups arranged by the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability

Queen Noor is one of the 100 political and civic leaders behind Global Zero, a new initiative to eliminate nuclear weapons. For more information, visit www.globalzero.org.

The new administration's goal of starting down what it calls the "long road" toward total elimination of nuclear weapons represents perhaps its most striking foreign-policy departure from the Bush administration, which expressed widespread skepticism about arms-control treaties and pulled out of the anti-ballistic missile pact with Russia.

Check out the global map map of estimated nuclear warheads at the Boston Globe.

On February 4 the United States will join France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Russia and China to talk about Iran, one of the greatest challenges facing them all. This meeting will also be the first attended by the Obama administration. In the days following, the U.S. will need to resolve both substantive and procedural issues if diplomacy is to have a chance of stopping Iran short of acquiring nuclear weapon capabilities.

Ecumenical Advocacy Days | March 13-16, 2009
The goal is to strengthen the Christian voice and to mobilize for advocacy on a wide variety of U.S. domestic and international policy issues.

WAND’s Women of Faith in Action Organizer Amanda Hendler-Voss and WAND Public Policy Director Marie Rietmann are speaking on panels at EAD; WAND will be providing our American Pie Exercise to all participants.

Alliance for Nuclear Accountability DC Days April 26-29, 2009 Come to Washington for four days of advocacy and training about nuclear issues

• Learn from experts and maximize your impact
• Meet with Members of Congress
• Network with activists from across the country

WAND’s Public Policy Field Director, Kathy Robinson is participating in the planning and training for this year’s DC Days event.

Please let Kathy know if you are planning to participate in either Ecumenical Advocacy Days or Alliance for Nuclear Accountability DC Days! krobinson@wand.org (202) 544-5055 ext. 2605

Saturday, March 21, 2009 | Full agenda here.

With pre-conference programs for women of color on Friday, March 20
Douglass Campus Center, Rutgers-New Brunswick

Keynote talks include Cynthia LóPEZ & a panel on WOMEN REPORTING from GLOBAL FRONTLINES

• Click here for amazon.com. (You won't even see it happen.)
• Click here for iGive.com. (You'll need to specify WAND Education Fund as your cause.)
• Click here for GoodShop. (You'll need to specify WAND Education Fund as your cause.)

And it's not just books! Oh, no. It's toys, groceries, DVDs, magazines, and even gift certificates! It's all good.