Your question for the candidates

 In Action Alert, Election 2012, Obama, Pentagon Spending

When we asked our supporters which peace issue you most want the presidential candidates to address at the upcoming GOP and Democratic national conventions, close to 50 percent chose military spending.

Now that you’ve helped us choose, will you click here to send our question to the Obama and Romney campaigns?

Many of you eloquently expressed your outrage at the amount of money this country spends on war. Here’s what some of you had to say:

“I cannot comprehend why we need to spend more than all other countries combined on our military.”

“It makes no sense to increase military spending during a time of economic depression and with so many people out of work.”

“Our military approach to maintaining international superiority is a dead end… [and] is draining us in terms of our young men and women and our wealth.”

“Plain and simple, we need to reduce our military spending and increase our domestic welfare, education, infrastructure investment and health care spending. When are we going to start?”

We are at a very unique place in the debate on US military spending, and that makes now the right time to push. As Jon said in his email on Tuesday:

This is a fascinating time for supporters of cutting Pentagon spending. While Mitt Romney routinely brags in his stump speeches about his plans to increase military spending, the Obama campaign has been running ads attacking Mitt Romney for endorsing increases in military spending.For the first time in many years, support for jacking up military spending may be becoming a political liability.

The irony is that President Obama’s own budget also increases military spending, just not at the rate that Romney would. Polls are showing that there is a new and growing awareness among voters that bloated military spending is draining much-needed funds from our economy, while not increasing our security.

The Republican convention will be next week, and the Democratic convention the week after. That means both candidates will be making major speeches. Please click here to let them know that we expect them to lay out their visions for military spending, and if and when real reductions will take place.

This of course does not mean our work on any of these issues will slow down. For those of you who chose differently, we heard you loud and clear. Many of you were frustrated about the war in Afghanistan, and many pointed out the dangers of our nuclear stockpile. Also, preventing war with Iran topped the list of concerns named by the 6 percent of our supporters who chose “other.” Our campaigns on all of these issues will continue to build, and it’s wonderful to know we have you all standing with us.

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Showing 5 comments
  • Sara
    Reply

    I’m a disabled veteran and all my medical care and retirement come from the defence budget. Hard for me to support cuts because the VA always gets the short stick. Until there are no more veterans who need care this budget issue needs to be carefully considered.

    • Reva Patwardhan
      Reply

      Hi Sara, Thank you so much for your service. The money we are talking about is mainly from the Department of Defense budget, as well as portions of the Energy Dept budget that fund nuclear weapons. Veterans Affairs is separate from those two budgets, and we don’t advocate cutting any veteran’s benefits. There are plenty of other places to cut without touching those crucial programs.

  • Rex Powers Jr
    Reply

    If you are serious about cutting military spending you should try to get Gary Johnson included in the debates. He is the only national candidate advocating a more peaceful foreign policy and meaningful spending cuts

  • CalmRon
    Reply

    I am not falling for the Demoplican/RepublicRat differrences! They are different for sure; or this game would have ended a long time ago. their differences are just the stratagem behind the ruse.
    The Democrats (and Obama) had every chance to be heroes if they had done as promised:
    – Ended the obcene wars.
    – Instituted a real healthcare for all, a single payer plan instead of the Obamacare which is a republican dream came true: a gift to the insurance comapnies.

    But more than the duopoly it is the public’s negligance that is the root of the problems.

    Everyone has everything at the reach of their senses to KNOW firsthand that even in a house people can’t live together without everyone having some say in how things are decided.

    Yet the public has allowed a group (the political machine) to have presige, money, power… and CONTEMPT for the voters (essense of republicanism, now shared by the Dem Party).

    They get to spend 53% of the opublic’s income, send their kids to commit criminal acts of war and be killed and spy on them too.
    Why does the public not insist on scruitizing them??
    Why a bathroom remodeling job gets more scrutiny than an atomic power plant?
    Emotionally, I can tolerate Obama much more easily than I could tolerate that lying cheating racist.
    But rationally, neither will make a differrence in my life.
    The rational of lesser evil is sound; we all make, consciously and subconsciously, al least half a million lesser, least worse decisions every day.
    But the two parties have done this for half a decade now. What does the public need to wake up?
    I have seen this go on for 46 years: Never a better Democrat; always a worse Repblican!
    And unless we start changing our electoral behaviour things willkeep getting worse.

    If you have any sense of self worth DEMAND at least SOMETHING for your vote.
    And promise them you willnot vote for them if they don’t kepp their promises; Then YOU keep yours.
    CalmRon

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