Redwood Forest Friends Meeting Minute on the Budget

The Redwood Forest Friends Meeting, a Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends in Santa Rosa, CA, wants to ensure that changes to the federal budget minimize support to the military and protect those with the least resources.

We agree as a Meeting to ask our federal, elected officials to:

1. End the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and significantly reduce military spending. Estimates project savings of about 1 trillion dollars over the decade. The bi-partisan Defense Task Force has identified an additional $1 trillion in military spending cuts that could be adopted over the coming years without affecting the security of the United States.
2. Increase revenue through changes to the tax code. Very few corporations pay anything near the federal tax rate of 35%. Any attempts to lower corporate tax rates should eliminate credits and deductions, which significantly lower the actual tax rate.
3. Invest in job creation. Unemployed people need jobs before they can become consumers again.
4. Protect the most vulnerable. Cutting the services and benefits for the poorest families and individuals is fundamentally unfair and is shortsighted for a country that needs to strengthen its future economy.