End Wars and Occupations IOT Monthly Conference Call - Progressive Democrats of America

 October 2012
sound  chat room 
 
Link to Sound File  Link to Chat Room Archive

Introductions began at the 4:50 minute mark and our moderator introduced Gael Murphy, who then introduced the organization United For Peace & Justice at the 5:40 mark. They're very concerned about the spending the US has been doing on the military over the past decade. The very sad part is that while the military is spending gargantuan amounts of money (Over $7 trillion), 47 out of 50 states are collectively $122 billion in the red, meaning these wars are being fought at the expense of domestic needs. She discusses the sequestration agreement, wherein the US budget as a whole will undergo catastrophic cuts whether we reach a further agreement or not. Both the arbitrary cutting of the budget and the deficit obsession of Congress on both sides of the aisle threaten to throw the US back into recession, a recession that we never really recovered from to begin with. No real idea how the situation is going to play out.

Naturally, we anti-war progressives would LOVE to put the war on the table and to use the sequestration to pressure Congress to end the war. That was followed by comments from various people on the call concerning spending.

Representative Barbara Lee is proposing HR 6528, a bill to audit the Pentagon. PDA has plenty of material on how to prioritize budget items based on The People's Budget.