U.S. foreign policy is dangerous, undemocratic, and deeply out of sync with real global challenges. Is continuous war inevitable, or can we change course?
Where the old institutions have failed, insurgent global citizens must now defend the climate directly and preserve the public trust for generations to come.
These revenue-raisers and spending cuts would narrow the federal budget deficit by $881 billion per year, nearly eliminating it altogether.
A team of experts recommend ways to rebalance our national security budget.
This report challenges the premise that America is broke. In fact, we argue that the current fiscal challenge poses an opportunity to harness our ample but misdirected resources in ways that will make the country stronger.
The U.S. needs to repair the extreme imbalance in our security spending to strengthen our non-military security tools. This year’s Unified Security Budget would create that balance by getting serious about waste, reviewing roles and missions, and reforming the budget process.
The gap between federal spending on military as opposed to climate security has narrowed since 2008. Compared to China, though, our progress is meager.
Though its military spending is not wholly transparent, it is estimated that China spends one-sixth as much as the United States does on military security, and twice as much on climate security.
The green dividend is perhaps our last shot at transforming the U.S. economy. We have been given a second chance. If we blow it this time, there will not likely be another.
Somewhere on the list of 2010 milestones should be this: It was the year that unified security budgeting won the endorsement of the U.S. executive branch’s top leadership. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton first made this endorsement in May, during the Q&A following her speech supporting the new National Security Strategy. Joining her in the endorsement, she said, were Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair Adm. Mike Mullen, who both “wrote really strong letters to the House and Senate leadership and the appropriators and the budgeteers to make the case that we have to start looking at a national security budget.”
After the first 100 days of the Obama administration, the Institute for Policy Studies introduced our Change Index to evaluate the policies and performance of the new president. Did the candidate who promised change deliver on his promises?