Bush Budget Out of Step with American Public
Peace Activists Look to '08 for Change of Government Priorities

Yesterday the White House submitted its 2009 military budget request of $515.4 billion. It represents a 5% increase to an already over bloated Pentagon budget from last year and a 37% increase since Bush took office. This figure does not include the approved supplemental spending for the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Today you will go to the polls and vote for the next President; find out how much each of them would cut Pentagon bloat before you make your decision.

A poll by the Program for International Alternatives, shows that 65% of the American public believes the federal government should transfer tax dollars out of several areas of the defense budget that have nothing to do with our occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan. The mean response by Democrats favored cutting $39 billion; the mean response by Republicans $30 billion.

The nation agrees. We want money for schools, roads and hospitals - not out of date Pentagon programs. Tell your Representatives in the House and Senate you want them to cut at least $40 billion from the Pentagon budget.

According to the Center for American Progress the following are outdated and wasteful Pentagon programs we could cut from the budget:

• The F-22 Raptor fighter jet and Virginia Class submarines, designed to achieve superiority over Soviet jets and submarines that were never built;
• The V-22 Osprey, a poorly design aircraft which in testing phases has already caused the deaths of 30 American soldiers;
• Missile defense (star wars), proposed when terrorists were not our primary enemy;
• Bases in Asia, Europe and here at home, now irrelevant to today's geopolitical reality.

You can take direct action today against this waste. Check out Peace Voter and pick a candidate whose values reflect your own. Then, contact your Representative and tell them you unequivocally reject Bush's budget.

The cuts in domestic programs would reduce expenditures for domestic appropriations and entitlements by $23 billion in 2009 and $474 billion over five years.

What's being cut?

• Funding for the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) would be cut $570 million or 22%. This would require cutting more than one million low-income families and elderly people off the program entirely.
• The budget would reduce funding for the Environmental Protection Agency by $330 million.
• The budget would cut funding for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention by $433 million.
• 200,000 fewer children in low-income families would receive federal child care assistance in 2009 than in 2007, under the President's budget.
• Total funding for K-12 education is less than is needed simply to keep pace with inflation.
• Cut federal Medicaid expenditures by $18.2 billion over five years

In the mean time, the tax cuts Bush proposes would cost more than $900 billion over five years — and an additional $1.5 trillion in the five years after that, for a total cost of $2.4 trillion over the next decade. The top one percent of households — those with incomes exceeding $450,000 a year — would receive more than $1 trillion in tax cuts over the next ten years.

The American public has better uses for our tax dollars and it's time our Representatives in Congress stood up for our priorities and not those of the Bush Administration. Take Action Now by writing your representative; Take Action for the Future by informing your vote today at Peace Voter.