Alan Grayson-- Not The Lesser Of Two Evils; A Champion For Peace & Prosperity

I've known Alan Grayson for quite a few years and one thing I can say about him is that he is refreshingly consistent. He's been a dedicated fighter for working families-- on a Bernie Sanders/Raúl Grijalva level of dedication. And, as a corollary, he's been very much opposed to aggressive war. I dare say he runs every political decision he makes through a screen that takes into account if it's pro-working family and if it's pro-peace. As you know, Alan is running for Congress again and Blue America has endorsed him. If you'd like to help elect one of the best progressive leaders in contemporary history, please consider making a contribution to his campaign through ActBlue.

This week he made a great case for his own reelection to an as yet undefined Orlando-area House seat. He came up with a way for the government to save two trillion dollars-- and in a way that is completely consistent with his guiding principles and progressive values.

There  are 23 million Americans who can’t find full-time work, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
 
There  are 50 million Americans who can’t see a doctor when they are sick, according  to the Centers for Disease Control.
 
There  are more than 15 million American families who owe more on their mortgage than their  homes are worth, according to Zillow.  That’s almost a third of all the families who own homes.
 
If I were in Congress right now, these  are the problems that I would be trying to solve.
 
But  instead, we see a bizarre preoccupation-- no, really, an obsession-– with  cutting federal benefits. Some kind of  weird contest to see who can inflict the most pain on the American people. With the proponent of each new sadistic plan announcing  proudly, “mine is bigger than yours.”
 
I’ll  be honest-- the federal deficit for the year 2021 is not something that I spend  a lot of time thinking about, these days. But let’s assume-- arguendo,  as they used to say back in Ancient Rome-– that for some reason, there were  some compelling, emergency need to work out how to cut $2 trillion from projected federal budget  deficits over the next ten years.
 
I  have an idea about how to do that. It’s  a very simple idea.  In fact, I can sum  it up in one word, with five letters:

PEACE.
 
Now, I know that peace may not be as popular as it used to be. The polling is very iffy. The focus groups are mixed. But let’s look at the facts.
 
Last year, we spent $154 billion in appropriated funds on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. That is in addition to the $549 billion in appropriated funds for the Pentagon-– you know,  just to keep the lights on. And the  non-appropriated cost of war was even higher-– especially when you include the cost of care for the 15% of all the American troops in Iraq who come home with permanent brain abnormalities. According to Nobel Prize winner Joseph  Stiglitz, the war in Iraq alone is costing us $4 trillion and  counting. That’s more than $13,000 for every one of us, and roughly 8% of our entire net worth as a nation.
 
The cost of war is enormous. So enormous  that, as I pointed out in H.R.  5353, The War is Making You Poor Act [see video up top], if we simply funded that cost through the Pentagon’s own budget, rather than through supplemental appropriations, we could eliminate taxes on everyone’s first $35,000 of income ($70,000 for married couples), and still reduce the deficit by more than $10 billion a year.
 
And  that was last year. Since then, the  number of wars has gone up by 50%.
 
This  is what Pat Buchanan-– of all people, Pat Buchanan-– said two weeks ago:

 
"The United States is strategically over-extended, worldwide. What are we doing borrowing money from Japan to defend Japan. Borrow money from Europe to defend Europe. Borrow  money from the Persian Gulf to defend the Persian Gulf. This country is over-extended. It is an empire and the empire is coming down."

You  say that you want to save $2 trillion in ten years? It’s simple: end the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, and end whatever it is that they are calling it now in Libya. I’d  rather do that than throw Granny from the train.
 
But  that’s just me. 
 
Guns or butter. It’s not a new choice.
 
I prefer butter.
 
What  about you?

If your choice is butter-- or an appropriate vegan substitute-- help send Alan back to Congress so he can keep up the battle against the cronic overreach of a Military Industrial Complex that has gotten much, much worse since President Eisenhower warned the country about its power.