WASHINGTON, D.C.(IDN | NAPF) – The U.S. Department of Energy released Trump’s Fiscal Year 2018 budget request on May 23. The budget includes a $54 billion increase in defence spending, including $10.2 billion for supposed “Weapons activities to maintain and enhance the safety, security and effectiveness of our nuclear weapons enterprise.” Details of exactly what is included in the $10.2 billion increase have not yet been released.
While the overall budget includes significant increases to defence spending, it also includes significant cuts to scientific research, medical research, disease prevention and health insurance for children of the working poor. The Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) current funding would be cut by more than 30 percent. Planned Parenthood would not receive any Health and Human Services Funding.
Tom Frieden, the Director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), tweeted that the proposed cut, “Devastates programs that protect Americans from cancer, diabetes, heart attacks, strokes and other deadly and expensive conditions.” In another tweet, he went on to characterize the administration’s CDC cuts as “unsafe at any level of enactment. Would increase illness, death, risks to Americans and health care costs.”
The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation has been calling for the government to take a “Humanize Not Modernize” approach to spending, imploring both the Obama and Trump administrations to shift spending from modernizing the U.S. nuclear arsenal to humanizing the country and the planet.
David Krieger, President of the Santa Barbara-based Foundation, commented, “Currently, the government is on track to spend more than $1 trillion over the next 30 years modernizing its nuclear arsenal. This equates to $4 million per hour for the next 30 years on improving our nuclear arsenal – $1 trillion spent on machines of death rather than on improving life. Surely this money could be far better spent on constructive, not destructive purposes. It is irresponsible and short-sighted to cut programs that care for the American people in order to pay for upgraded nuclear arms. This cruel budget reflects a bullying leader who has no qualms about kicking the poor while they’re down.” [IDN-InDepthNews – 24 May 2017]
Image credit: Dispropaganda.
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