Today, a letter signed by CODEPINK and 47 advocacy, faith, grassroots, and government oversight groups was sent to congressional leadership urging Congress not to include any additional funding for the Pentagon in the forthcoming infrastructure or relief plans.

As we enter critical negotiations around the National Defense Authorization Act for FY2022, requests for additional Department of Defense spending have cropped up outside of the traditional budget authorization process. Legislators on both sides of the aisle are attempting to include funding requests outside of the President’s existing request of $753 billion for FY22, an increase from last year’s Trump administration levels.

“We are recovering from a year of record unemployment and housing insecurity, reeling from the loss of loved ones, staggering under the weight of multiplying medical and student loan debt, confronting systemic racism and violent white nationalism, and combating the ongoing climate crisis,” the letter states. “Militarized spending has not solved these problems, and in many ways has made them worse… Every additional dollar allocated to the Pentagon is another dollar that is not being used to address these urgent challenges, and will not provide the relief our communities desperately need.”

CODEPINK Co-Director Carley Towne said "Every extra dollar for the military budget is a dollar robbed from the critical task that lies ahead of us: transforming our infrastructure to address the realities of climate change. It would be a crime to flood the Pentagon and private military contractors with more cash so they can continue to destroy infrastructure in other countries and contaminate land in this country." 

The signatories join 24 progressive lawmakers, led by U.S. Representatives Barbara Lee, Mark Pocan, and Cori Bush, who made similar demands last week.

Read the full text of the letter here and quotes from supporting organizations here.