After
years of hearing that the United States needs to reduce its budget deficit,
demonstrators suggest cutting nukes.
By
Jon Overton
IOWA
CITY, Ia. — April 15 is a day no doubt dreaded by millions of Americans from
coast to coast: Tax Day.
Peace
activists spent that day highlighting what they saw as excessive government
spending on nuclear weapons. After gathering in front of the Iowa City Post
Office, they advocated for reallocating income tax revenue.
“We’re
being told every day that you have to tighten your belt, we don’t have enough
money,” said Maureen McCue, the Iowa coordinator of Physicians for Social
Responsibility. “And yet we’re spending money on a weapons system that was
developed during World War II ... an accidental use or an intentional use could
essentially end civilization.”
Ongoing
nuclear negotiations with Iran were of interest to many demonstrators.
Ed
Flaherty, a member of the Iowa City chapter of Veterans for Peace said he would
encourage Sens. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, to stop
blocking a nuclear deal with Iran and work make sure the agreement comes to
pass.
“If
there’s a war with Iran, [Ernst and Grassley are] gonna have to explain why
[they] tried to undercut this,” Flaherty said. “So don’t undercut it. Encourage
this agreement.”
Korey
Schneider with Global Zero, an organization seeking worldwide nuclear disarmament
by 2030, said he hopes the nuclear deal with Iran can be a stepping stone for
U.S. nuclear disarmament.
“As
an organization as a whole, we’re taking an active role in promoting peaceful
negotiations with Iran and non-proliferation negotiations throughout the world
and once we can buckle down on non-proliferation, we can start disarming
ourselves,” he said.
McCue
also emphasized that spending so much money on nuclear weapons prevents the
United States from spending money on other worthy causes.
“We
don’t have enough money for our schools, she said. “We don’t have enough money
for housing. We don’t have enough money for mental health.”
A
report
from the Stimson Center tried to reconcile conflicting expenditure estimates
from official government and independent studies. The global security think
tank found that the Departments of Defense and Energy spend a combined $32 billion
on offensive nuclear weapons annually.
Global
Zero specifically took issue with U.S. plans to spend $1 trillion over the
next 30 years on modernizing its nuclear weapons program. In particular, Schneider
said that there have been so many close calls where nuclear weapons could have
accidentally detonated that they aren’t worth the risk.
Nancy
Porter, a retired teacher and former chair of the National Education
Association’s Peace and Justice Caucus, highlighted the struggles that public
schools have faced in recent years. She cited a statistic
from the Iowa Department of Education, stating that 41 percent of the state’s
public school students are eligible for free and reduced lunch. Living in
poverty makes it harder for students to learn and with large class sizes that
result from low school funding, Porter said, it becomes difficult to give
struggling students extra attention.
Tying
low social service funding to high nuclear weapons expenditures, McCue argued
that the country needs to change its priorities.
“The
more we deny people access to basic needs, the more we prioritize the military
and particularly these horrific weapons systems,” McCue said. “The more
conflict we’re going to see and the more difficulty people are going to
experience.”
Jon Overton is the Media Editor of Iowa Peace Network and an undergraduate at the University of Iowa studying Ethics & Public Policy and Sociology.
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