Greenfield Recorder, Monday, April 18, 2022
By CHRIS LARABEE
Staff Writer
https://www.recorder.com/Protesters-raise-awareness-on-where-tax-money-goes-45973528
GREENFIELD — A small group of social activists stood on the Greenfield Common Saturday to raise awareness about where American tax dollars go, while specifically highlighting the Department of Defense’s $773 billion budget request for the upcoming fiscal year.
Sponsored by the Traprock Center for Peace and Justice, rally attendees described the military budget as “incredibly bloated” and said funding for weapons of war would be much better off going toward programs in the U.S. or across the world that fight poverty.
“Our whole economy is geared toward military and weapons,” said Wendell resident and Traprock board of directors member Anna Gyorgy, adding that the war in Ukraine is fueling “new contracts” for weapons manufacturers.
Greenfield resident Emily Greene said U.S. tax dollars should be going toward “basic human rights like housing, education, health care and food,” rather than maintaining nearly 800 international military bases around the world.
Gyorgy and Greene said tax dollars fund these “war machines” and that there needs to be a “legal way for our taxes to go to peace.” They noted U.S. Rep. Jim Mc-Govern, D-Worcester, has sponsored the Religious Freedom Peace Tax Fund Act, which would establish a fund in the federal treasury that would receive tax funds from conscientious objectors. That money could be appropriated for any non-military use in the federal budget. Mc-Govern took the reins on sponsoring the bill after the death of longtime U.S. Congressman and civil rights icon John Lewis.
Initiatives like this bill, they said, would help millions of people around the U.S. and the world, rather than creating weapons that kill them.
Please contact Jim Mc-Govern,” Greene said. “He needs to hear us.”
Pat Hynes, who is also on Traprock’s board of directors, said the government “rushed to get weapons to Ukraine” and will happily pour billions of dollars of tax revenue into the ever-growing military budget, but human rights and climate resilience are ignored.
Hynes noted the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which is a subset of the United Nations, released its most grave report yet on the risks of climate change in February — just days before Russia invaded Ukraine — and said it was summarily ignored.
President Joe Biden’s fiscal year 2023 budget states the government is investing $44.9 billion to “tackle the climate crisis.” In mid-March, the U.S. Senate and House approved $13.6 billion in emergency funding for the “purpose of supporting the Ukrainian people as they defend their territorial integrity and sovereignty, and to counter ongoing Russian aggression,” according to the bill’s text.
“(The IPCC report) was buried,” Hynes said. “Contrast that with the response to Ukraine. … Contrast that to the emergency funds for weapons.”
Chris Larabee can be reached at clarabee@recorder.com or 413-930-4081