Shall Congress prepare for health and climate crises by transferring funds from military budget to cities for human needs, jobs and an environmentally sustainable economy?”

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Peace Commissioners, Endorsing Organizations and Individuals:
An update on preparations for the hearing on Tuesday June 2 at 6:30 pm by zoom before the Health and Human Services Committee to request that the Board of Alders place a non-binding referendum on the November ballot in New Haven: “Shall Congress prepare for health and climate crises by transferring funds from military budget to cities for human needs, jobs and an environmentally sustainable economy?”
How to join the hearing / zoom meeting
The Board of Alders has a protocol for zoom hearings.  It is necessary to register in advance.
Click on this link to register:  https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_cHV-XTQ0QJO-TcSe9_h9ow  Once you register you will receive a confirmation email with information about joining the zoom hearing. It is necessary to register in advance even if you are not giving a testimony. 

(We are working on the possibility of livestreaming the zoom hearing on FaceBook, to be confirmed)

Testimonies
Testimonies should be within 3 min.  Since the hearing is via zoom there is a request for testimonies to be written and submitted in advance if possible.  We are submitting the testimonies as a package.  Please email to joelle.fishman@pobox.com by Monday if possible. Include you name, phone and email address.
Lindsay Koshgarian of National Priorities Project will give a ten minute testimony at the beginning of the hearing.
Messaging. What points do we want to emphasize?
The National Priorities Project testimony will set the messaging framework. We can break it down in the rest of the testimonies. Each group or individual will speak from their own perspective.
New Haven facts: After many public hearings and hard work by the Board of Alders Finance Committee, the full Board of Alders passed a budget that includes $2.5 million in cuts across the board plus $1 million in cuts to education. That is even with a projected $2.5 million from Yale which will have to be fought for. The cost of the COVID-19 pandemic is unknown, but will be huge.
These cuts and deficits are being figured into a City budget already less than bare bones thanks to more than a decade of underfunding from state and federal sources. The bloated US war economy comes at the high cost of underfunding human needs and implementation of climate change solutions which will create many more new jobs.
NPP facts: (full reports available at links below)
-- Trade-offs: for Military in 2018, taxpayers in New Haven, Connecticut are paying $159.94 million. Here's what those tax dollars could have paid for instead:
https://www.nationalpriorities.org/interactive-data/trade-offs/?state=09&program=14&place=0952000
-- No Warming No War: How Militarism Fuels the Climate Crisis - and Vice Versa
https://www.nationalpriorities.org/analysis/2020/no-warming-no-war/
-- In 2018 of federal taxes paid by taxpayers in New Haven, $159.94 million went to military spending. The NPP site allows you to compute trade-offs for what that money could have meant for schools, housing, solar energy, infrastructure jobs, clean energy jobs, etc.
-- Federal spending on war in the past two decades is $6.4 trillion. In comparison, the cost of shifting the U.S. power grid to 100% renewable over the next decade is estimated at $4.5 trillion. Instead of funding endless wars, we could have transformed our fossil-fuel energy system, with money to spare.This would create new jobs.
-- Funding a green economy instead of a bloated military budget would be a net job creator; for the same level of spending, clean energy and infrastructure would create over 40% more jobs and energy efficiency retrofits create nearly twice the level of job creation.
-- Racism and racial oppression form the foundation for both the extractive fossil fuel economy and the militarized economy. Neither could exist without the presumption that some human lives are worth less than others, and racial justice would undermine the foundations of both.
This pandemic revealed the extrene inequalities in our country in a new way. Black and Brown people are getting infected and dying at a disproportionally higher rate. More and more people are saying that we cannot go back to the way things were, but that we as a society move forward for a more just and sustainable future. The ballot referendum is in this spirit.
Endorsing organizations confirmed as of May 29:
Greater New Haven Peace Council
Ice the Beef
Jewish Voice for Peace New Haven
New Growth Praise Center
New Haven Climate Movement
New Haven Rising
New Haven Peoples Center
New Haven Friends Meeting
Oasis in the Overwhelm
Pride Center
Promoting Enduring Peace
Shalom United Church of Christ
Sunrise New Haven
Semilla Collective
Unidad Latina en Accion
Varick AME Zion Church
Veterans for Peace Connecticut
Turnout - Spread the Word

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