Resolution 59: Opposition to Military Spending Resolution
WHEREAS, President Trump has proposed to move $54 billion from human and environmental spending at home and abroad to military spending, bringing military spending to well over 60% of federal discretionary spending; and
WHEREAS, polling has found the U.S. public to favor a $41 billion reduction in military spending, a $94 billion gap away from President Trump's proposal; and
WHEREAS, part of helping alleviate the refugee crisis should be ending, not escalating, wars that create refugees; and
WHEREAS, President Trump himself admits that the enormous military spending of the past 16 years has been disastrous and made us less safe, not safer; and
WHEREAS, fractions of the proposed military budget could provide free, top-quality education from pre-school through college, end hunger and starvation on earth, convert the U.S. to clean energy, provide clean drinking water everywhere it's needed on the planet, build fast trains between all major U.S. cities, and double non-military U.S. foreign aid rather than cutting it; and
WHEREAS, as even 121 retired U.S. generals have written a letter opposing cutting foreign aid; and
WHEREAS, a December 2014 Gallup poll of 65 nations found that the United States was far and away the country considered the largest threat to peace in the world; and
WHEREAS, a United States responsible for providing clean drinking water, schools, medicine, and solar panels to others would be more secure and face far less hostility around the world; and
WHEREAS, our environmental and human needs are desperate and urgent; and
WHEREAS, the military is itself the greatest consumer of petroleum we have; and
WHEREAS, economists at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst have documented that military spending is an economic drain rather than a jobs program,
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, that The United States Conference of Mayors urges the United States Congress to move our tax dollars in exactly the opposite direction proposed by the President, from militarism to human and environmental needs.
Resolution 60: Resolution Calling for Hearings on Real City Budgets Needed and the Taxes our Cities Send to the Federal Military Budget
WHEREAS, The United States Conference of Mayors has for numerous years passed resolutions calling for cutting the military budget to spend the savings on human needs; and
WHEREAS, the severity of the ongoing economic crisis has created budget shortfalls at all levels of government and requires us to re-examine our national spending priorities; and
WHEREAS, the military portion of our discretionary Federal budget has been for many years and continues to be greater than fifty percent; and
WHEREAS, reductions in spending on the military budget should be done in a measured way that does not destabilize our communities nor reduces in any way funds for Veterans; and
WHEREAS, funds should be allocated to create a just transition to a civilian economy; and
WHEREAS, city governments throughout the nation are hard pressed to maintain city services and meet their responsibilities to their constituents; and
WHEREAS, The US Conference of Mayors wishes to draw our residents into the conversation so that they too can express their wishes,
NOW,THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, that The United States Conference of Mayors calls on the Mayors of each of our cities to promptly hold public hearings that examine what each of city's Departments needs to carry out the goals of the Department and the work it is assigned and what they could accomplish if funds were available that now go to the military; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that each city is urged to include in its public hearings a report on how much of its resident's federal taxes go toward paying the military budget; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that each city government is urged to pass a resolution calling on our federal legislators and the US government to move significant funds away from the military budget to human needs; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that each city is urged to send a copy of the resolution passed to its federal legislators with a request that they respond with their plans to reduce the military budget in favor of the human needs budget.