Billboards, Bases, and Baltimore

The nonprofit organization World Beyond War has put up a billboard in Baltimore stating that “3% of U.S. military spending could end starvation on earth.” Of course, a much smaller percentage could heat Baltimore schools, where students are attending classes in unheated rooms.

World Beyond War and several other organizations are planning a rally on January 12 and a conference January 12 to 14 in Baltimore on the subject of closing U.S. foreign military bases, a move that would save enough money to end starvation on earth and take on several other major projects as well. See: http://noforeignbases.org

The billboard is visible from major highways but also from an encampment where people are living in tents in the bitter cold.

The 3% calculation is determined as follows:

In 2008, the United Nations said that $30 billion per year could end hunger on earth, as reported in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and many other outlets. The Food and Agriculture Organization has not updated that figure since 2008, and has recently told us that such figures do not require much updating. In a separate report, most recently published in 2015, the same organization provides a figure of $265 billion as the cost per year for 15 years to permanently eliminate extreme poverty, which would eliminate starvation and malnutrition — a broader project than just preventing starvation one year at a time. The FAO’s spokesperson informed us in an email: “I think it would be incorrect to compare the two figures as the 265 billion has been calculated taking into consideration a number of initiatives including social protection cash transfers aimed at extracting people from extreme poverty and not just hunger.”

In 2017, the annual Pentagon base budget, plus war budget, plus nuclear weapons in the Department of Energy, plus Homeland Security and other military spending totaled well over $1 trillion. This was prior to Congress boosting Pentagon spending by $80 billion in the 2018 budget and passing major increases in nuclear weapons spending, Homeland Security, etc.

3% of $1 trillion = $30 billion.

So, 3% of U.S. military spending could end starvation on earth.

22% of $1.2 trillion = $265 billion.

So, 22 percent of U.S. military spending for 15 years could permanently end extreme poverty globally.

U.S. military bases in other people’s countries cost the United States at least $100 billion per year. With that kind of money, we could end starvation and the lack of clean drinking water globally, make college free in the United States, and start a major shift to clean sustainable energy.