The Budget of Death: This Is What the Cost of War Looks Like

Last updated on: March 24, 2017 at 10:47 am by Lindsey Paris-Lopez

The Budget of Death: This Is What the Cost of War Looks Like 2017-03-24T10:47:57-05:00 Lindsey Paris-Lopez

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

It has been over a week since the Trump administration unveiled the Budget of Death.

While various reports have catalogued the 19 agencies that would be terminated and the 61 programs that would lose their funding and commentators have denounced the heartlessness of a budget that cuts everything from peace studies to public broadcasting, I have been struggling to find something new to say to put this fiscal fiasco into perspective, without descending into rage or becoming overwhelmed with despair. But a week later, I got nothing. Nothing new. Because this budget proposal – which, though unlikely to pass in its entirety, still portends a bleak future – merely leads us further down the road of imperialism into the dark recesses of militarism and mercilessness that have been waiting for us ever since we started this journey of perpetual war.

$54 billion additional dollars are proposed for defense, with prominent politicians claiming that this is not enough, while resources for the poor and vulnerable, the environment, labor, housing and healthcare – to name a few – are eradicated. “Budget of Death,” dramatic as it may sound, is the only way to describe a proposal to pour money into the machinery of mass murder while eliminating programs geared toward enhancing the health and quality of life of the citizenry. It is painful to imagine what the true human cost of this proposal will look like. Students will struggle in under-funded schools, their bellies growling without free or low-cost lunch. Many will give up any hope for college because funding for postsecondary education will also be cut. Millions will no longer have access to clean drinking water when funding for cleaning the Great Lakes – which make up 20% of the world’s fresh water supply. – is depleted. Malnutrition rates will grow exponentially. Unemployment and poverty will rise. In human terms, this will look like despair, disease, and death.

This is what the cost of war looks like.

Or, more accurately, this is the domestic face of U.S. imperialism, turning a blind eye to the real needs of the people in the name of defeating an enemy that it fuels with every night raid and airstrike. The face of poverty and pain is one human reflection of war. As Eisenhower put it so well 64 years ago, “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.” As often as this quote is invoked, it is rarely envisioned when politicians call for more military spending and a “balanced budget” at the same time. Something has to give, and the Trump budget proposal has spelled out what that something is. Of course, each program on the chopping block has received far less money than our overly-bloated military in the first place. The further decimation of these programs is the slow death of the American soul.

And the slow death of the American soul is the counterpart to the sudden death of our military’s victims around the world. If poverty and pain are the domestic face of U.S. imperialism, then piles of rubble that used to be mosques or homes are the hallmarks of our military abroad, along with broken families, refugee camps overflowing with the displaced from our violence, famine from blockades enforced with our weaponry, and more. Every gun that is made, every warship launched signifies theft from the poor at home and death to the poor around the world. While the Trump administration’s budget unveils the former, we remain largely shielded from the latter.

President Trump did not set us on the course of war that devours resources and souls, even as he speeds us along its destructive path. We need to see this budget as a byproduct of perpetual and self-perpetuating war, the culmination of a culture of enmity at the expense of empathy. So while we must contact our representatives and tell them that the human cost of this budget is unacceptable, and while cases must be made for every individual program at risk, we need a deeper healing to revive our souls. We need to remember the humanity of those not only on the losing end of our budget, but also on the receiving end of our bombs. We need to transform the blindness of fear and hate into the clear vision of compassion.

War is costing us not only in blood and treasure. It is costing us our faith in humanity, our kindness, our future. When we put our trust in weapons, we erode our trust in people, isolating ourselves by carving out an identity against others. The spirit of hostility we direct overseas circles back like a boomerang, breeding fear and cruelty. Militarization of the police, panicked shootings of unarmed, mostly black or brown people, and bullying of minorities are just some of the consequences of investing in enmity. Mercilessness festers, spreads, and threatens to swallow us whole.

Yet we are awakening now to at least some of the consequences of devoting our dollars – along with our mental and physical energy – toward death. As we contemplate the toll endless war spending is taking on education, the environment, housing and healthcare, as we see all around us the human faces of this deprivation – the despair and frustration – may our hearts expand in empathy not only to our immediate neighbors, but to our neighbors around the world. The loss that we experience through spending our resources on destruction is the slow unveiling of the reflection of the loss our wars are inflicting upon them. None of us can afford to lose anymore.

I place my hope in the awakening of our human conscience as we come to recognize not only what war has cost us, but what it is costing our brothers and sisters. My hope is built on the knowledge that we are made in the image of Love, interconnected and bound to each other. As we have eroded our own souls through our violence, we may repair and restore them through our love, building relationships that make us stronger, finding our identity not over and against but with and for one another.

Where our treasure is, there our heart will be also. So let us invest our treasure in building one-another up, here and around the world, that we may mend our hearts and resurrect our humanity.

Image: Stock Photo from 123rf.com by dimjul

Stay in the loop! Like Teaching Nonviolent Atonement on Facebook!

Previous Post

March 21, 2017

Islam, Friendship, and Truth: Esmail Koushanpour

Next Post

March 27, 2017 Judaism, Atonement, and God's Nonviolence - The RavenCast

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Atonement and Current Events Curriculum Faith and Families Interviews Jesus the Forgiving Victim Lent Montessori politics Reviews The Bible Explained Uncategorized Valentine's Day Wednesday Sermon Who is God?

Select a Month July 2020 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 January 2014 December 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz