Global Day of Action on Military Spending, April 12, 2011: Lafayette Park,

Noon
FLASH FACTS

1. The money needed to fund one day's worth of bombs in Libya would cancel the
District of Columbia's deficit with money left over. The current deficit is $175
million.
Kathryn Perry, Steinbruck Center for Urban Studies

2. We have 100,000 troops in Afghanistan, at a cost of $1 million per

soldier. Bringing home just 300 of them would solve the budget deficit for the entire
city of Washington DC.
Medea Benjamin, Code Pink

3. Every minute the US spends $2.1 million on the military. Imagine what just one
minute's worth of that spending could do if it were used for peace. For the cost of
one minute of war we could instead build 16 new schools with 12 classrooms each
in Afghanistan. Or we could fund 36 elementary school teachers right here in the
District of Columbia.
Noah Merrill, American Friends Service Committee

4. Taxpayers in DC will pay $2.4 billion to the Department of Defense in 2012. For
the same amount we could provide low-income healthcare to 261,513 people for
one year, wages for 3,386 elementary school teachers for ten years, or four years of
university tuition for 197,878 students.
Hierald E. Kane-Osorto, Washington Peace Center

5. Taxpayers in Maryland's 8th Congressional District (including Rockville where I

live) will pay $201.6 million to support the Iraq war in 2011. For the same amount of
money, 21,034 veterans could receive VA medical care for one year. Four of the
leading veterans' service organizations, including AMVETS and the VFW, say the
administration's budget is $4 billion short in providing adequately for veterans'
health care.
Mike Marceau, Veterans for Peace

6. This year's state budget deficit for Wisconsin that sparked the national protests is
$1.8 billion. Taxpayers in Wisconsin have been forced to pay $1.7 billion for war in
Afghanistan just this year.
Phyllis Bennis, Institute for Policy Studies

7. I’m the president of Local 1994 of the Municipal and County Government
Employees Organization, representing 10,000 public employees across Maryland. If
Maryland had back the $2 billion it has spent on the Afghan war, it wouldn’t be
facing the budget deficit it is now, and the cuts to public services and employee
wages and benefits.
Gino Renne, MCGO

8. The $550 million spent by the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) in the first 9
days in Libya could build 80,570 new schools or libraries in Nigeria or Ethiopia
(UNICEF), supply books and other educational materials for 176 MILLION children in
Africa (UNICEF), or provide 14.6 million South African orphans special support and
education (UNICEF).
Emira Woods, Institute for Policy Studies

9. There is expected to be $1 million cut from the federal Community Development

Block Grants (1/4th of the total funds for this program), which fund crucial affordable
housing programs. That's the amount of money spent for the Iraq war spending in
eight minutes.
Latino Economic Development Corporation

10. We're spending about $700 billion a year on the military. Meanwhile we're
cutting job-creating investment. At 15.8%, black employment is twice the national
average. We need a new stimulus package. The last one was (coincidentally?) about
$700 billion.
Melvin Hardy, New Beginnings Initiative

11. The United States is planning to spend $118 billion on war operations in
Afghanistan and Iraq for 2012. According to the National Coalition for the Homeless,
the Department of Housing and Urban Development only has $1.79 billion from the
entire budget devoted to “homeless assistance grants." This amount might be able
to alleviate homelessness in one state.
Amber Mason, Dorothy Day Catholic Worker

12. If the United States would cut its military operations in Afghanistan short by one
day, it could fund the U.S. Institute of Peace for the next four years. Over the long
run, this investment would save additional dollars and lives by preventing wars that
don’t need to happen.
Ruth Flower, Friends Committee on National Legislation

13. The United States plans to spend $107 billion in Afghanistan in 2012. For that
amount, we could triple the budget of the Peace Corps -- and then fund it for 90
years.
Simone Campbell, SSS, NETWORK: A National Catholic Social Justice Lobby

14. Fewer than three F-35 jet fighters at $113 million equals the combined 2011
budgets of the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for
the Humanities of $322.6 million.
Sarah Browning, Split This Rock

15. My daughter directs a Boston branch of Citizen Schools, which organizes out of
school time for kids in high-poverty schools. Her program will cease to exist next
year, because its funding through Americorps, the national and community service
program, is being slashed. Americorps’ entire annual budget could be funded by
four hours of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.
Miriam Pemberton, Institute for Policy Studies

16. The United States is expected to spend $4.6 million for military aid to Honduras
this year--to a regime that has unleashed a wave of repression in the last three
weeks against teachers protesting the privatization of education and dismantling of
their unions (a mini-Wisconsin.) That money could instead support a range of
services in a small city like nearby Rockville, Maryland, such as providing nearly
2,000 children with low-income healthcare for one year.
Jean Stokan, Pax Christi, Sisters of Mercy of the Americas

16. One Day of the Iraq War = $720 Million -- How Would You Spend it? One Day of
the Iraq War = 84 New Elementary Schools, 12,478 Elementary School Teachers,
95,364 Head Start Places for Children, 1,153,846 Children with Free School Lunches,
34,904 Four-Year Scholarships for University Students, 163,525 People with Health
Care, 423,529 Children with Health Care, 6,482 Families with Homes, or 1,274,336
Homes with Renewable Energy.
Raed Jarrar, Peace Action

HEARD ENOUGH? Get involved at www.demilitarize.org