My spiritual group, the Sisters of Mercy of the Americas, has recognized 5 essential issues on which to focus our efforts, certainly one of which is non-violence. That is why I’m calling on the federal authorities to chop our nation’s extreme spending on weapons and conflict and put money into fixing urgent issues of human wants as a substitute.
In the course of the pandemic, the Sisters of Mercy have seen the threats our group faces up shut. Our neighbors face threats from starvation with one in seven youngsters experiencing starvation in Rhode Island. They face threats from the pandemic, which has killed over a million folks within the U.S. and so they face the specter of a altering local weather which is able to make Rhode Island hotter and wetter and even perhaps smaller as a consequence of a receding shoreline.
Regardless of the clear menace posed by starvation, the pandemic and local weather change, the federal authorities continues to spend our taxpayer {dollars} on weapons and conflict as a substitute of fixing human issues. In 2021, the common taxpayer spent about $2,000 on the navy, in line with the Nationwide Priorities Undertaking. That very same 12 months, every of us solely spent $27 on the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention, and $5 on renewable vitality.
We noticed how these spending selections labored out – the navy spending didn’t cease a conflict from breaking out, low funding in public well being has saved us mired in a years-long pandemic and the emaciated spending on renewable vitality implies that we’re nonetheless barreling towards local weather disaster. The overreliance on navy approaches to international conflicts dangerously places us on a path of spiraling violence.
Pope Francis has described it as “insanity” for nations to make use of the Ukraine conflict as a purpose to extend navy budgets and has challenged nations to switch the “perverse and diabolical logic of weapons” with a more practical strategy to addressing worldwide conflicts.
These poor spending selections are about to be repeated. President Biden requested $813 billion for weapons and conflict in 2023, a $31 billion improve over this 12 months’s price range. Astonishingly, some members of Congress are pushing for even greater navy spending ranges regardless of many arguing that issues just like the Youngster Tax Credit score and different poverty-reducing packages are too costly.
I can see that spending priorities are clearly not aligned with the precise issues affecting our communities and I’m not alone. A current ballot discovered that 56 p.c of U.S. adults are supportive of taking cash out of the Pentagon price range and reinvesting it into issues like housing, well being care and training.
Our Rhode Island legislators in Congress have an vital position to play in fixing this downside. Senator Whitehouse sits on the Finances Committee, Sen. Reed chairs the Senate Armed Companies Committee and sits on the Protection Appropriations Committee and Rep. Langevin sits on the Home Armed Service Committee. They will and should do extra as representatives of our group.
This 12 months, I urge our Rhode Island legislators to heed the decision of religion leaders throughout the nation and work to maneuver cash away from weapons and conflict and into pressing group priorities as a substitute.
Sister Ann McKenna RSM is a retired educator in Rhode Island who has additionally labored in Belize, Honduras, Peru and Belgium.