75 Orgs say NO to GOP Plans to Use COVID-19 Relief Money for Weapons of War

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Tuesday July 28, 2020
Contact: Michael Galant  [email protected]  (203) 260-4654

WASHINGTON Win Without War Executive Director Stephen Miles released the following statement regarding the Senate Republicans’ proposed COVID-19 relief bill:

“As millions across the country and beyond suffer in desperate need of assistance, Senate Republicans are trying to spend our COVID-19 relief money on weapons of war. This is inexcusable. In April of this year, Win Without War led over 60 organizations in urging Congress to ensure that no additional COVID-19 relief funds be appropriated to the DoD. With the addition of 13 more signatories, we say once again: not one more pandemic relief dollar for the Pentagon.

“Under the Senate Republicans’ plan, $30 billion would be appropriated to the Pentagon. That includes $11 billion in payments to contractors to boost their profits (despite their profits soaring during the pandemic), funds to reimburse the Pentagon for helping fund Trump’s racist border wall, and over $7 billion to buy more weapons, including $686 million for the bungled, trillion-dollar F-35 fighter jet program. We must remind the Senate that there is no evidence that fighter jets can be used to defeat a disease.

“In total, that’s $30 billion not spent on PPE or ventilators. $30 billion not spent on keeping our families afloat during an economic collapse. $30 billion not spent on housing relief in the midst of an eviction crisis. $30 billion not spent on human needs. Make no mistake: the Senate GOP is choosing to let people die in order to line the pockets of weapons manufacturer CEOs.

“This comes on the heels of the House and Senate’s passage of an obscenely large $740 billion fiscal year 2021 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), and an additional $10.5 billion appropriated to the Pentagon in the CARES Act in March. While hundreds of people in the U.S. die every day and with tens of millions unemployed, it’s appalling that our already overfilled warmaking budget is getting another spending spree. To use our insufficient pandemic relief funds to inflate it even further is grotesque. We call on all members of Congress to stand firmly against this gross display of inhumanity and oppose the Senate GOP’s so-called HEALS Act.”

Read the full letter here.