Two Budgets: The Choice is Ours!

In mid-March, two budget proposals were presented, one by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan; the other by the
Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC).  The choice for our future is clear.

Robert Borosage, Campaign for America's future, writes in The Ryan Budget vs. 'A Budget for All':
"The CPC would invest in jobs, preserve Social Security and Medicare, and call on the banks and the wealthy to pay a hefty share for getting us out of the hole we are in. Ryan's Republican budget would impose austerity, lavish benefits on the rich, end Medicare as we know it and send the bill for the mess to working families, the poor and the elderly. The CPC would invest in rebuilding the country and reviving the American Dream. Ryan would invest in policing the world and protecting the tax havens of multinationals, and turn the Dream into a fantasy. The Ryan budget stands with the 1%. The CPC with the rest of us. You get to choose."

 According to figures in a Congressional Budget Office analysis: “House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan’s new budget plan specifies a long-term spending path under which, by 2050, most of the federal government aside from Social Security, health care, and defense would cease to exist, released today.” Click here  to see the rest of CBPP’s analysis and click here  to see many more facts, sources, and commentary.
           
Op-eds by community leaders and letters to the editor from us are critical at this moment.  Please go to the New Priorities Network site for talking points and resources on the GOP budget.


With the U.S. facing devastating economic and environmental crises, with our states and cities forced into layoffs and cutbacks, now is the moment to demand a shift in our country's priorities.  Military spending -- now more than $700 billion per year -- is bankrupting our country and draining the life blood of our communities
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Campaign at Labor Day Rally, Boston Common
Massachusetts Congressman Barney Frank, in calling for a 25% reduction in military spending, has put the issue clearly -- “If we are not able to get military spending under control……we will not be able to respond to important domestic needs.”

We support a 25% reduction in military spending, with the savings redirected to urgent needs, including the funding of jobs in housing, health care, education, clean energy and infrastructure repairs -- and preventing the layoff of State and local public workers in the Commonwealth.
 
The call for a 25% reduction is a practical step.  Just ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, cutting unneeded weapons programs, and eliminating wasteful spending would easily meet the goal without compromising our security in any way.
Please, contact us!



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'Militarism is Stealing the Future from Ordinary Americans'

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Click on the image to view this short video

More Local News!

---Week of Action, April 12 - 18:  Communities throughout eastern Massachusetts call for 'Fund Our Communities, Not War':
Campaign members organized and joined marches, vigils, leafletting, events - in Andover, Arlington, Belmont, Brookline, Boston, Cambridge, Fall River, Milton, New Bedford, Reading, and Somerville.

---On March 12, Newton Dialogues held a coffee at the home of Dan Shaw. It was a great success, with more than 25 people, many of them new people. Thepurpose of the meeting was to talk about how the US military spending is affecting us. During the introduction each person was asked: What do you value which you fear may be lost in the decisions Congress may make in the upcoming budget debate? Dan and Nancy Wrenn gave a presentation on the military budget.

---On March 2, the Coalition for Social Justice and Coalition Against Poverty recently hosted their annual "Speak Out.   More than 160 people packed the Buttonwood Senior Center in New Bedford, as several speakers touched on the key points that the coalitions hope to see the state Legislature pass this year. Among other things, the coalitions hope to see state lawmakers pass a progressive tax package to increase revenues and protect state-funded services.
A number of elected officials attended.

---On February 26, many 25% activists attended the rally at the State House in solidarity with Wisconsin public workers.  See website photo gallery.


News:

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Quotes:

A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching
spiritual death. Martin Luther King, Jr.

The military budget is not on the table. The military is at the table, and it is eating everybody else’s lunch.  MA Congressman Barney Frank, summer 2011 deficit negotiations

NATIONAL:
The New Priorities Network

The New Priorities Network was founded in early October, 2010. Dozens of national and local peace and economic justice groups have joined the network. They will be helping to coordinate the movement for new priorities, nationally.
Website at http://newprioritiesnetwork.org.


          MBTA
Join April 4 at Statehouse:
3pm Hearing; 5pm Rally


MBTA and the Pentagon Budget:

MBTA Budget Crisis: It's Not About Scarcity
http://bostonoccupier.com/2012/03/13/mbta-budget-crisis-its-not-about-scarcity/

".........This Assembly (ie, Boston April 4th, People'‚s Assembly) is part of a growing National Day of Action to Defend Public Transportation that has already spread from Boston to Chicago, Los Angeles, Philadelphia and other cities across the US.

Transportation issues are generally presented to us by politicians and the mainstream media as 'local issues', just as local budgets are presented as in perpetual fiscal "crisis". However, the current fiscal crisis facing mass transit agencies across the country has national and systemic causes. When we look beyond the narrow frame of the MBTA budget, much of the mainstream discussion stands revealed as a total farce. It's built on a lie: that there 'is no money available".

There is plenty of money.  We just need to go and get it.

For example, each year the US government wastes close to a trillion dollars (that's one thousand billion!) on wars and other military spending. Such military spending necessarily means that legitimate public needs like public transportation (as well as healthcare and education) go neglected. There is a direct line to be drawn from the great sucking sound of the Pentagon budget, to the screeching breaks of trains that have not been replaced since the 1960s, when US bombs rained down mercilessly on Vietnam (rather than, say, on Iraq or Afghanistan).

Beyond government war spending, we can look at the financial holdings of the 1%: the millionaires and billionaires, .............."

Donate to the 25% Campaign!

The 25% Campaign needs your help to print materials and support our organizing effort. Please donate generously. Donations are 100% tax-deductible.

 

Make checks out to "Massachusetts Peace Action Education Fund" and write "25% Campaign" on the memo line. Mail to 11 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA 02138. Or click "Donate" below to pay securely online.

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NEWS - some highlights

-January, 2012 The 25% campaign launches its 2012 plan.
The 25% campaign merges with Massachusetts Peace Action

-November 8, Arlington 25% Solution sponsors Town Hall Meeting, Taking on the Budget Debate

-October 2011-25% campaign does teach-in at Occupy Boston

--Summer 2011 - Local Fund Our Community groups in MA help educate and build support for the People's Budget

-- June, 2011 Massachusetts Democratic Party votes in favor of the People’s Budget!
http://www.uslaboragainstwar.org/article.php?id=24275

---Spring, 2011 25% campaign joins new Statewide network! Fund Our Communities, No War



Boston Speak-out March 22 2011 Video

25% Campaign Stands with Wisconsin

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25% Campaign Stands with Wisconsin
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Barney Frank hosts Town Hall Meetings


Rep. Barney Frank hosted 3 town hall meetings in October, - in New Bedford, Wellesley and Taunton - inviting people to discuss the economy, the budget and why he thinks it is essential that our country scales back its worldwide military commitments and cuts excessive military spending.

Speaking to seniors in Taunton, Frank said "If the congressional “super committee” tasked with cutting the federal deficit by identifying $1.2 trillion in savings over the next 10 years fails to consider military cuts, social programs that help seniors will likely be slashed.

On Friday October 28th, Rep. Barney Frank told wickedlocal.com and GateHouse Media editors and reporters he believes federal  budget cuts are a “zero-sum game.” He said Congress needs to cut  military spending or it will be forced to cut something else, such as  Medicare and Medicaid. (see article here)

Boston Speak-out

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March 22, 2011- Over 200 people attended a Boston community speak-out tonight to talk about the impact of a third year of state budget cutbacks on education, health care, elder services, teen jobs and other programs. 

Over 20 community leaders addressed the crowd, explaining why their programs are important and why the community depends on them.

Yawu Miller of One Massachusetts.... made the point that affluent taxpayers pay a smaller share of their income in Massachusetts state and local taxes than do the poor and middle income.   

The event promoted "An Act to Invest in Our Communities", sponsored by State Sen. Sonia Chang-Diaz, which would raise $1.2 billion to plug the state's budget gap by taxing those who can best afford to pay -- those making $100,000 a year and over.  

In a grand finale, members of Boston Coalition to Fund Our Communities - Cut Military Spending 25% unfurled a room-sized bar graph showing that most of the Federal government's discretionary income is spent on the military. 

Daryl White of the Boston Coalition stated that just half the cost of one of the F-35 fighter planes now flying over Libya would cover the entire Boston school department budget gap for this year.   Just one hour of the Afghanistan war would fully fund the Boston youth jobs program for one summer.

The event was sponsored by New England United for Justice, One Massachusetts, and the Boston Coalition

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Cambridge UJP and Greenport lead tax day protest at Central Square Post Office, April 18, 2011