By now, most people know that the bloated $770 Billion defense spending bill passed both houses of Congress with bipartisan support and was then signed by President Biden just before the end of 2021.  This week in Clear Actions, we invite you to take a look where that money will be spent. Maintaining the US military domination around the world costs a lot of money, more than this author can fully comprehend.

The Center for Arms Control and Nonproliferation recently published a summary of the Fiscal Year 2022 National Defense Authorization Act (S. 1605) (NDAA), and broke down the budget into easily understandable tables that include the purposes of the funding streams. One table describes specific nuclear weapons authorizations the bill includes, as well as reporting processes (or lack thereof) surrounding Department of Defense activities. The group tracked the NDAA progress, and provides some of the most accessible information on what was requested, versus what was actually funded.

Contemplating the numbers can be daunting: $5 Billion allocated for the continued construction of a single 530 foot long Columbia Class nuclear submarine; $711 million to update the frightening B61-12 Gravity Bomb arsenel; $691 million to develop the enriched-plutonium W87-1 Nuclear Warhead; the list goes on. The military machine continues to grow expontially, as does the unified interest for US global domintattion from both Democrat and Republican party members.

Code Pink, a women-led Washington DC-based organization working to stop endless wars, launched a coalition campaign on September 11 last year called “Cut the Pentagon for the People, Peace, and Planet.” According to the group’s website, “It is time to build a big tent and get in the streets to expose the costs of war and demand that our tax dollars be spent to support the needs of people and the planet, not for destruction and murder.”

Peace House staff and volunteers have worked alongside Code Pink and many of the coalition member groups for decades on a variety of issues. We find promise in this campaign and its energized grassroots strategy to finally reduce defense spending by building a visible movement bringing the issues to light. We invite you to check out the resources and action opportunities on CutthePentagon.org and stay tuned for events in our community to further this effort.