CONTACT: Anna Schumann
Communications Director
aschumann@clw.org
COUNCIL FOR A LIVABLE WORLD DISAPPOINTED IN BIDEN ADMINISTRATION FOR CATERING TO “BLOATED MILITARY FANTASIES OF YESTERDAY”
(APRIL 9 – WASHINGTON) The Biden administration’s release of a partial Fiscal Year 2022 federal budget seems to maintain the defense-spending status quo, despite hopes that it would mark a significant decrease, says Council for a Livable World, the nation’s oldest advocacy organization focused on sound national security policy including reducing nuclear threats. The administration, and Congress, must do more to cut wasteful defense spending and set this country down a more sustainable strategic path.
The new request reportedly includes $715 billion in Pentagon spending, which does not include defense-related spending from the Department of Energy and miscellaneous smaller sources.
In response, Council for a Livable World Executive Director, former nine-term Congressman John Tierney, released the following statement:
“While President Biden’s military budget request is less than former President Donald Trump planned to ask for, it should still be further reduced during congressional budget consideration. The fact is, we cannot allow a three-quarters-of-a-trillion-dollar Pentagon budget to be considered normal in any way. Much work remains to divest ourselves of legacy weapons systems and strategies intended to fight the Cold War. We must reduce wasteful spending to meet the moment we find ourselves in now.
The United States continues to spend more on defense than the next 10 countries combined and our current Pentagon budget rivals defense spending at the height of the Vietnam War.
At the same time, the United States remains bogged down in small wars around the world with no clear metrics for success while maintaining about 800 military bases around the world.
But in a year when more Americans have died from a virus than in all of the wars we have fought in the 20th and 21st centuries, it is time to realize that throwing more money at the Pentagon does not make us safer. Congress should work with the administration to build a new national security strategy that will prepare us for the realities we face now and tomorrow, not the bloated military fantasies of yesterday.”
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