"Fund Our Communities" reports on Raskin-Hixson letter to Congress

Like legislators around the country, members of the Maryland General Assembly are facing a tough legislative session full of painful choices.

Thankfully, some progressive legislators in Maryland have been looking at the situation, and they've realized that they can't just focus on what to cut or how they might be able to raise revenues.

Instead, they have also been working with a new coalition called "Fund Our Communities, Bring the War Dollars Home" to start advocating for new priorities at the federal level.

"Fund Our Communities" started organizing in the summer of 2010. Already, 35 Maryland-based community organizations have endorsed the campaign and become members. The coalition is truly broad-based and includes environmental, ethnic, religious and labor groups. The groups are united by a common understanding of the facts and a simple message. In a nutshell, federal spending for community needs is too low, while federal spending on the military is too high. Much of the Pentagon's spending subsidizes U.S. military bases in foreign countries, outdated weapons systems and counterproductive interventions. The nation is desperate for a reallocation of resources away from militarism and toward a caring and supportive economy. "Fund Our Communities" groups know that final budget decisions occur at the national level, but they are demanding that their state and local government leaders start advocating for real change.

Marylanders contribute more than 2,000 dollars per capita in federal taxes per year to support military spending. This adds up to more than $13.6 billion dollars per year. That amount is comparable to the entire Maryland state government budget!

At the same time, experts such as Andrew Bacevitch, a retired Army officer and now professor at Boston University, note that a 30% reduction in military outlays would still keep the U.S. spending more than the next 10 highest spending countries combined.

Many Maryland state legislators have been listening to the facts and the "Fund Our Communities" message. They've realized that this situation is way out of wack, and a bunch of them are getting ready to tell congress that something's gotta give!

In January 2011, State Senator Jamie Raskin and State Delegate Sheila Hixson penned a letter addressed to congress. The letter starts off strong and does not mince words:

We, the undersigned members of the Maryland General Assembly, urge you to do whatever you can to move tens of billions of dollars from the bloated Pentagon budget into the urgent national project of rebuilding our crumbling physical and social infrastructure at home.

Once Senator Raskin and Delegate Hixson made their letter public and started to ask their colleagues to co-sign, activists from all over Maryland started contacting their state legislators to encourage them.

So far, 39 state senators and delegates representing 23 state districts have signed the letter. Meanwhile, the campaign continues and more will sign on. For an updated list of co-signors, see the following link.

The Raskin/Hixson letter ends as strong as it starts:

For all these reasons, we ask you to introduce legislation in Congress making major reductions in the Pentagon budget, amounting to at least 25% over the next five years as recommended by Representatives Frank and Paul. Savings can be invested in the crying social needs of the nation.

In case you didn't know, that's a reference to the Barney Frank and Ron Paul led Sustainable Defense Task Force which identified ways to cut military spending without diminishing security. For more information about that see here.

Next steps

The Progressive Working Group has also been active on this issue and included the campaign to shift funds from the Pentagon to communities as one of its six priority issues for the 2011 Maryland legislative session. PWG will press especially hard for more legislator co-signatures to the Raskin/Hixson letter from now through the March 7 "Progressive summit and lobby night" in Annapolis.

If you're interested in learning more about "Fund Our Communities" or taking action, see their website.

Links

Raskin/Hixson Letter (updated, final letter)
http://ourfunds.org/files/2011/03/2011-03-16-raskin_hixson_congressional_letter.pdf

Raskin/Hixson Letter (first draft)
http://ourfunds.org/files/2011/01/2011-01-20-raskin_hixson_congressional_letter.pdf

Updated list Md. Assembly co-signors to the Raskin/Hixson Letter
http://ourfunds.org/2011/01/22/mdassembly-foc-letter-urge-2011a/

Sustainable Defense Task Force Report
http://www.comw.org/pda/fulltext/1006SDTFreport.pdf