Thread by @IPS_DC

For months, we've been saying that we could fund plans like #MedicareForAll by cutting over $300 billion from the military budget.

Now, here it is: The breakdown of exactly what could be cut (with colorful graphics). (1/9)
nytimes.com/interactive/20…
@lindsaykosh via @nytimes

First, over the last 2 decades, the U.S. has spent $4.9 trillion on wars. What do we have to show for it? Nothing but endless violence.

While we can’t un-spend that $4.9 trillion, imagine if we could make different choices for the next 20 years. Like these cuts:
(2/9)

✂️ $66 BILLION out of the Pentagon's requested $165 billion for 2020 was directly related to fighting endless, destructive, unwinnable wars.

✂️ $14 BILLION is how much we gave to other countries' militaries in 2017. That's more than 5x the UN's budget.
(3/9)

✂️ $90 BILLION could come from closing just half (or more) of the 800 military bases and installations the U.S. has in over 90 countries.

This could actually enhance our national security by defusing unnecessary tensions. (What are we doing with a base in Aruba, anyway?)
(4/9)

✂️ $43 BILLION is how much we could save from banning nuclear weapons, like 70 other countries have.

The U.S. currently has 4,000 deployed or stockpiled nuclear weapons. What would actually make us all safer is having fewer nukes, not more.
(5/9)

✂️ $14.7 BILLION comes from cutting the disastrously wasteful F-35 jet fighter alone.

This is more annually than the entire military budget of Iran, spent on an unusable plane with 900 performance deficiencies.
(6/9)

✂️ $9 BILLION from Trump's toxic, completely unnecessary disaster of a border wall that would endanger people instead of keeping them safe.

✂️ $400 MILLION from "Space Force." Enough said.
(7/9)

✂️ $33 BILLION would no longer be needed to provide a separate Pentagon health care system for troops+their families under #MedicareForAll.

✂️ $3 BILLION from transferring hundreds of thousands of administrative jobs from active-duty military to civilians at lower cost.
(8/9)

Remaking our military as a truly defense-based institution, rather than a war machine/A.T.M. for private contractors, will require major changes.

But that's no excuse for spending billions to make our world more dangerous instead of ways to make all of our lives better. (9/9)