A pacifist group stood outside the downtown Evanston post office Monday to raise awareness of how tax money is spent.
As residents arrived to file last-minute tax returns, members of Neighbors for Peace, an Evanston-based organization, handed out flyers showing the budget allocations for the 2007 fiscal year. About five volunteers per hour worked in one-hour shifts from 8 a.m until 6 p.m. at the post office, 1101 Davis St.
“What we want to do is educate taxpayers about where their tax money really goes,” said Rosalie Riegle of Evanston, who organized the event. “Our federal government publishes a budget that shows that only 19 percent goes to military spending and that’s absolutely untrue.”
According to the handout, $563 billion dollars has been budgeted for current military purposes, including personnel, operation and maintenance. The handout also estimates an additional $100 billion to be spent because the Bush administration is expected to seek supplemental appropriations, as it has for the past three years. This constitutes 49 percent of the budget when it is added to the $429 billion allocated for past military spending, such as on veterans’ benefits and interest on the national debt, the flyer said.
“It’s another way to bring information and raise consciousness about how we’re funding an illegal, immoral war,” volunteer Dickelle Fonda of Evanston said of the leafleting. “We’re not using the money for people, we’re not using it for human resources, we’re using it to kill people.”
According to the flyer, the government has said that only 19 percent of funds are used for the military and domestic security because it includes trust funds such as Social Security in its figures. The flyer did not include these trust funds in its numbers.
Fonda said the group was getting “a really positive response” from people.
Evanston resident Wil Danielson said he was surprised by the information presented on the flyer.
“We’re not used to seeing this much (spent on the military),” Danielson said. “Usually I think we see human resources as much – or more – than defense.”
The group asked people to contact U.S. Sens. Richard Durbin and Barack Obama and ask them to vote against an additional spending package for the current fiscal year, which includes $67.5 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The vote is scheduled for next week.
“We need to go to our representatives who appropriate money for this war and say no,” Fonda said. “That’s our voice. That’s our power and we need to use it.”
Reach Annie Martin at [email protected].
