Tell President Biden and our Members of Congress: Stay true to progressive priorities in budget negotiations!

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Call Script

My name is __________. I am a constituent, and my zip code is _______. I am a member of Indivisible SF.

We support the broad strokes of President Biden's budget proposal. And we oppose Republican ploys to enrich the already wealthy and diminish the economic future of everyone else.

We applaud President Biden's modest Medicare-tax increase on households earning over $400,000 per year and enacting a minimum tax on billionaires, his proposals for bolstering Medicaid and Obamacare, restoring the Child Tax Credit, and reshaping the tax system towards one that rewards work rather than accumulated wealth. We also urge increasing the Social Security tax-cap so that those earning over $165,000 per year pay their fair share to sustain it.

But we were disappointed that President Biden's proposal did not address continued funding for the Covid health emergency that is set to expire in May.

We support his proposals to combat global warming. Climate change is the greatest national security threat that we face; we urge you to go farther and be bolder in addressing it.

We are disappointed at his proposal to once again increase defense spending. Like you, we oppose military aggression by Russia, China, and anyone else. But our defense budget is already larger than that of the ten next largest countries combined. Last year's $69 billion dollar increase was greater than the total military budget of Russia and every other nation on Earth except for China, which has a defense budget less than one-third of ours.

Some 60 percent of all our discretionary spending goes to the Pentagon and defense-related military-industrial corporations for "national security" (broadly defined). That is far too high.We don't need an ever-growing military or a new generation of nuclear weapons. What we do need is a much stronger defense against global warming and climate catastrophe. What we do need is more equitable access to education and housing. What we do need is a better and more affordable healthcare system.

Background

On March 9, President Biden submitted to Congress a $6.8 trillion budget for fiscal 2023. As is normal, the bulk of that amount is mandatory spending required by law. Roughly $1.6 trillion, however, is for discretionary spending. The budget war will be about changes to the laws governing mandatory spending and the total amount and allocation of discretionary spending.

The Process:

The process is going to be long, confusing, and frustrating. If We the People raise our voices loudly and consistently, we will win some victories and suffer some defeats. If we remain passively silent there will be fewer achievements and more losses.

In theory there are phases to the annual budget battle:

The president submits a budget proposal in March. DONE!
The House and Senate Budget Committees set topline maximum amounts for each of the twelve appropriation bills. With Congress gridlocked by partisan warfare, this rarely happens on time. Instead, the top party leaders eventually end up meeting in secret to set the top-line numbers. This empowers the leaders and disempowers everyone else, including constituents like us.
Once the two budget committees (House & Senate) have given the twelve department-area committees (Defense, Interior, HHS, etc.) their top-line amounts, those committee are supposed to draft the twelve appropriation bills that allocate how their amount is to be divvied up among the various agencies and programs they supervise.
(By the time they reach this stage it may be that all the deadlines have been blown, and there's a government shutdown crisis that requires one or more continuing resolutions [CRs].)
Eventually, one or more appropriation bills may (or may not) be passed by both House and Senate. For appropriations that remain undone, party leaders again meet in secret to mush them together into one or more omnibus bills that no one has the time to read, debate, or amend. This again gives enormous power to a handful of party leaders.
Presidential signature (or veto) on appropriation bills (if any) or long-term CRs (which may be likely).

Defense Spending:

Understanding the "defense budget" is like peering at one of those wavy funhouse mirrors through a kaleidoscope. Terms like "defense spending" and "national security budget" mean different things depending on who is talking and what their political agenda is. When a politician, pundit, or reporter wants to minimize the amount, they equate "defense spending" with the Department of Defense (DoD) appropriation (sometimes described as the "Pentagon Budget"). But in real life, "defense spending" actually includes large amounts that are not included in the DoD appropriation such as:

The billions being spent on a new generation of nuclear weapons (Dept. of Energy Budget)
Military aid and support to foreign allies (State Dept. budget)
Military construction of bases and facilities (Military and Veterans appropriations budget)
Separate off-budget Ukraine appropriations
Some portions of Homeland Security appropriations (difficult to tease out)
Some portions of the secret "dark budget" for CIA, NSA, DIA, NSC, etc. (impossible to discern)
Overseas Contingency Operations/Global War on Terrorism (OCO/GWOT) (Discontinued? Disguised?)

(Veterans health care and benefits is not normally included in "defense" spending calculations, though some people argue that it should be.)

The result is that internet searches return varying amounts for "defense spending," "military budget," "national security costs," and so forth. Most (but not all) of the items listed above are specified by the annual National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), but they are spread out over (and buried in the details of) different appropriation bills.

For those into deep weed-diving, Table S-7 on page 162 of the president's 2024 Budget Proposal provides some useful clarity:

2024 National Security request: $1014bn (60% of total discretionary spending)

2024 Non-security request $560bn (33% of total discretionary spending)

2024 Veterans health request $121bn (7% of total discretionary spending)

So "bottom line" (as wonks are wont to say), this budget proposal calls for devoting 60 percent of all federal discretionary spending to national security and only 33 percent to education, healthcare, housing, environment, etc. The Republican Party and corporate Democrats are going to rant, rage, and insist on increasing the share spent on national security (most of which goes to military-industrial corporations) and decreasing the amount spent on improving the lives of the American people and defending us from climate catastrophe.