Bring Our War $$ Home from Egypt to Wisconsin!


ACTION TOOLKIT FOR Bring Our War $$ Home MESSAGE AT STATE CAPITOLS & SOLIDARITY RALLIES FOR UPRISINGS ABROAD

From Tunisia and Egypt, to Wisconsin and Ohio, let's bring our war dollars home! Bombing Afghanistan, occupying Iraq, and maintaining more than 1,000 military bases around the globe costs billions a week, and aid to dictators like Mubarak costs U.S. taxpayers billions a year. Meanwhile domestic programs like heating assistance for low-income families, and public workers like firefighters and teachers, see their budgets slashed. People everywhere are rising up to demand money for jobs, housing and education, not for wars and occupation. And with fuel and food prices continuing to rise, these movements will continue to grow!

Be on message when you join your fellow workers in the streets and on the steps of state capitols to demand spending for social needs rather than destruction! Here's how:
  • Download the Bring Our War $$ Home flier and sign, print on vibrant pink paper, and take them with you to help people connect the dots.
  • Download the Bring Our War $$ Home petition to print and take with you to actions! Don't forget to mail it back to us to add to our growing signature list!
  • Order your Bring Our War $$ Home t-shirt today.
  • Send for images produced by the Union of Maine Visual Artists, available here for a nominal fee.
  • Visit the National Priorities Project website to learn exactly how much income tax flows out from your state or city to a federal budget now allocating 54% to military spending.
  • Make your own sign taking $$ from a place where it doesn't belong, and giving it to an important program.

EXAMPLE:
Bring Our War $$ Home from Iraq & Afghanistan
$21.8 billion income tax contributed
from the state of CA

Bring Our War $$ Home to California
$19.7 billion state budget deficit

TALKING POINTS FOR INTERVIEWS OR LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

  • CODEPINK was founded with the core mission to pressure our government to stop spending on wars and instead fund human needs.
  • We watch with shock and dismay as the portion of federal discretionary spending on the military continues to rise. For FY11 it is 57%, in FY10 it was 54%, and in FY09 it was 51%.
  • People facing huge rises in food prices who were already living in poverty lost their fear and began to demand change. Tunisia and then Egypt, and then too many places to name them all, erupted with the demand for a voice in government and decent living conditions
  • States are in budget crisis worse than last year. This means towns, school districts and libraries are in budget crisis, too. Wisconsin erupted after its governor submitted a bill to gut public pensions and restrict the right to bargain. Now Ohio has followed suit.
  • Expect more states to follow, and more groups like teachers to organize nationally in opposition to so-called austerity budgets that starve low-income children in order to feed the profits of tax-dodging multinational corporations.
  • U.S. “aid” never reaches the people but instead funds military hardware sent to Yemen, Bahrain, and around the globe. Much taxpayer money continues to support dictators who are loyal to U.S. “interests” like controlling access to petroleum or transport lanes.
  • For example, 150 soldiers coming home from Afghanistan this year would solve Wisconsin's budget shortfall – 150 out of the approximately 80,000 currently stationed there.
  • It costs the U.S. taxpayer $48,000 a minute just for military operations in Afghanistan. What local budget shortfalls could that solve?

COMPARE THE COST FOR WAR FOR EACH STATE WITH ITS 2011 BUDGET DEFICIT

(All amounts are in billions of dollars for 2011)

State
 Paid for Iraq and Af*
Deficit
California $21.8 $19.7**
Florida $9.5 $4.7
Indiana $2.6 $1.3
Iowa $1.3 $1.1
Maine $0.5 $0.9
Michigan
$4.6 $2.0
Mississippi $0.7 $0.7
New Jersey $7.9 $10.7
New York $15.5 $8.5
Ohio
$6.0 $3.0
Pennsylvania
$6.6 $4.1
Wisconsin
$2.7 $3.4

*    amount of federal taxes residents of the state paid in 2011 that went to war
**  other estimates of CA's deficit run as high as $25.4 billion

Sources:
Spending on the war: National Priorities Project - http://costofwar.com

Deficits: Center on Budget and Policy Priorities - http://www.cbpp.org/cms/?fa=view&id=711

Table prepared by the Center for Study of Working Class Life
State University of New York at Stony Brook - www.workingclass.sunysb.edu