In the same budget that makes cuts to programs that keep low-income people from freezing in the wintertime, President Obama proposes spending $533 billion for the Pentagon. That spending would bring the total war spending plan for next year to $750 billion.
I guess the $140 million that war contractors spent last year on lobbying in Washington, D.C. really paid off.
But what about what the American people want? I mean, the more than $2 trillion we paid in taxes last year ought to buy us some influence in D.C., right? Pollsters asked Americans recently which big-ticket public program they'd cut if they had to choose, and by far the biggest response was, "defense spending." And, 72 percent of Americans want Congress to take action this year to speed up troop withdrawals from Afghanistan.
This budget shows that Washington, D.C. has gone tone-deaf and war-crazy. That's why Brave New Foundation's Rethink Afghanistan campaign is running the first-ever anti-Afghanistan-War ad on CNN in Washington, D.C. this week. Politicians want to ignore us to keep their friends in the war contracting industry happy, but we're not going to let them.
If you're tired of this war that's not making us safer and that's not worth the costs, join Rethink Afghanistan on Facebook and Twitter.