There is a need for a dramatic increase in spending on the civilian instruments of national security - diplomacy, strategic communications, foreign assistance, civic action, and economic reconstruction and development."

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates speaking at Kansas State University, 11/26/07

Your representative can make an investment this year in building peace by supporting the Reconstruction and Stabilization Civilian Management Act (H.R. 1084). Instead of sending the military to countries teetering on the brink of war or emerging from conflict, the U.S. could send civilian experts who specialize in training police, running hospitals and schools, improving farm production, and other specialties. These trained civilians would help governments strengthen the public institutions that meet people's basic needs and give them confidence in their government's ability to protect and support them.

The House of Representatives voted Wednesday to require the president to begin withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq within 30 days and set a goal for withdrawal of most combat troops by the end of 2008. The bill would also ban the use of torture in interrogations, direct the administration to seek regional stability in conversation with Iraq's neighbors, and prohibit the U.S. from building permanent military installations in Iraq. But the bill, which provides $50 billion in additional funding for war, will never become law because President Bush will veto it and Congress does not have enough votes to override the president's veto.

Some Democratic lawmakers have questioned whether a new Bush administration request for $88 million to fit "bunker-busting" bombs to B-2 stealth bombers was part of preparations for an attack on Iran.

A Bush administration summary said the request was needed for "development of a Massive Ordnance Penetrator for the B-2 aircraft in response to an urgent operational need from theater commanders," but gave no details. The Massive Ordnance Penetrator is a conventional bomb designed to destroy hardened or deeply buried targets.

"My assumption is that it is Iran, because you wouldn't use them in Iraq, and I don't know where you would use them in Afghanistan; it doesn't have any weapons facilities underground that we know of," said Rep. Jim Moran, a Virginia Democrat who is on the House Appropriations Committee and intends to argue against the request.

November 5 is a Global Day of Action against cluster bombs. People all over the world are taking action to urge the banning of these indiscriminate killers. The call-in day is a chance to show senators that there is strong public opposition to these inhumane weapons in the U.S. and strong support for S.594. The bill would substantially restrict both the use and export of cluster bombs by:
1) requiring that they not be used in areas where civilians are known to be present, and 2) requiring that they have a dud rate of less than 1 percent (meaning that they will leave behind fewer deadly submunitions on the ground after the combat ends).

In spite of claims that military spending creates jobs, much of the money spent on the military never makes it back to the States. NPP's findings, based on recently released federal spending data, show that 32 states pay more in taxes for the military than they receive back in military spending.

NPP also offers state rankings and breakdowns that show what each state received to fund education, food and nutrition and the Environmental Protection Agency as compared to military spending, along with a breakdown of total expenditures by state compared to taxes paid. Spending data at state and county levels for dozens of federal spending programs from 1983-2005 is also available at The NPP Database.