*This form is for organizations, city councils, county governments, and other entities to endorse the California Peace Budget Resolution.* Individuals can sign on to support the resolution here: https://actionnetwork.org/letters/ask-california-legislators-and-governor-to-back-peace-resolution/

Endorsed by: World BEYOND War; RootsAction.org; California for a World BEYOND War; Dean Preston, District 5 Supervisor - San Francisco Board of Supervisors; CODEPINK; Plan of Action in a Changing Era; Food Not Bombs, Santa Cruz; Nevada County Unitarian Universalist Social Justice Committee; Veterans For Peace, Chap. 87; Humboldt Branch, Women's International League for Peace and Freedom; Women's International League for Peace & Freedom, Sacramento Branch.

Resolution Proposed for California

Whereas the U.S. Congress has dramatically increased military spending in recent years, depriving us of those funds for human and environmental spending at home and abroad[i], and bringing military spending to well over 60% of federal discretionary spending[ii],

Whereas environmental and human needs are desperate and urgent,

Whereas fractions of the U.S. military budget could provide free, top-quality education from pre-school through college[iii], end hunger and starvation[iv], convert the U.S. to clean energy[v], provide clean drinking water everywhere it’s needed on the planet[vi], build fast trains between all major U.S. cities[vii], and double non-military U.S. foreign aid rather than cutting it[viii],

Whereas 3 percent of U.S. military spending could end starvation on earth[ix],

Whereas a fraction of military spending could prepare the United States to better handle disease pandemics[x],

Whereas part of helping alleviate the refugee crisis should be ending, not escalating, wars that create refugees[xi],

Whereas a December 2014 Gallup poll of 65 nations found that the United States was far and away the country considered the largest threat to peace in the world, and a Pew poll in 2017 found majorities in most countries polled viewing the United States as a threat[xii],

Whereas a nation responsible for providing clean drinking water, schools, medicine, and solar panels to others would be more secure and face far less hostility around the world,

Whereas the U.S. military is itself the single greatest consumer of petroleum[xiii],

Whereas economists at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst have documented that military spending is an economic drain rather than a jobs program[xiv],

Whereas polling has found the U.S. public to favor reductions in military spending[xv],

Whereas the Pentagon has not passed an audit and engages in massive accounting fraud[xvi],

Be it therefore resolved that the State of California urges the United States Congress to move some of the hundreds of billions of our tax dollars from militarism to human and environmental needs.

[i] “The Senate’s Military Spending Increase Alone Is Enough to Make Public College Free,” The Intercept, September 18, 2017, https://theintercept.com/2017/09/18/the-senates-military-spending-increase-alone-is-enough-to-make-public-college-free/

[ii] This does not include another 6% for the discretionary portion of veterans’ care. For a breakdown of discretionary spending in the 2021 budget from the National Priorities Project, see https://static.nationalpriorities.org/images/charts/2021-charts/discretionary-desk.png

[iii] “Free College: We Can Afford It,” The Washington Post, May 1, 2012, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/free-college-we-can-afford-it/2012/05/01/gIQAeFeltT_story.html?utm_term=.9cc6fea3d693

[iv] “The World Only Needs 30 Billion Dollars a Year to Eradicate the Scourge of Hunger,” Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, http://www.fao.org/newsroom/en/news/2008/1000853/index.html

[v] “Clean Energy Transition Is A $25 Trillion Free Lunch,” Clean Technica, https://cleantechnica.com/2015/11/03/clean-energy-transition-is-a-25-trillion-free-lunch / See also: http://www.solutionaryrail.org

[vi] “Clean Water for a Healthy World,” UN Environment Program, http://www.unwater.org/wwd10/downloads/WWD2010_LOWRES_BROCHURE_EN.pdf

[vii] “Cost of High Speed Rail in China One Third Lower than in Other Countries,” The World Bank, http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2014/07/10/cost-of-high-speed-rail-in-china-one-third-lower-than-in-other-countries

[viii] Non-military U.S. foreign aid is approximately $25 billion

[ix] “The 3 Percent Plan to End Starvation,” World BEYOND War, https://worldbeyondwar.org/3percent/

[x] World BEYOND War: "A Department of Actual Defense in a Time of Coronavirus,"
https://worldbeyondwar.org/a-department-of-actual-defense-in-a-time-of-coronavirus/

[xi] “43 Million People Kicked Out of Their Homes,” World Beyond War, https://worldbeyondwar.org/43-million-people-kicked-homes / “Europe’s Refugee Crisis Was Made in America,” The Nation, https://www.thenation.com/article/europes-refugee-crisis-was-made-in-america

[xii] See http://www.wingia.com/en/services/about_the_end_of_year_survey/global_results/7/33
and http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/08/01/u-s-power-and-influence-increasingly-seen-as-threat-in-other-countries/

[xiii] “Fight Climate Change, Not Wars,” Naomi Klein, http://www.naomiklein.org/articles/2009/12/fight-climate-change-not-wars

[xiv] “The U.S. Employment Effects of Military and Domestic Spending Priorities: 2011 Update,” Political Economy Research Institute, https://www.peri.umass.edu/publication/item/449-the-u-s-employment-effects-of-military-and-domestic-spending-priorities-2011-update

[xv] Program for Public Consultation: "Trump’s Budget at Odds with Public’s Priorities,"
http://www.publicconsultation.org/federal-budget/trumps-budget-at-odds-with-publics-priorities/

[xvi] The Nation: "The Pentagon's Massive Accounting Fraud,"
https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/pentagon-audit-budget-fraud/