Bring war billions home, mayors urge

The nation’s mayors have called on President Obama and the Congress to stop squandering human lives and $126 billion a year in Iraq and Afghanistan and “bring those war dollars home to meet vital human needs.”

Overwhelmingly approved at the annual meeting of the U.S. Conference of Mayors in Baltimore, a resolution introduced by Mayor Kitty Piercy of Eugene, Oregon, called for the billions being spent in the two wars to be used instead to “rebuild our infrastructure, aid municipal and state governments, develop a new economy based upon renewable, sustainable energy, and reduce the national debt.”

“Mayors call on our country to turn war dollars back into peace dollars, to bring our loved ones home and to focus our national resources on building security and prosperity here at home,” Mayor Piercy said. “Our children and families long for and call for real investment in the future of America. It is past due.”

Being in daily contact with the sentiments of their constituents, the nation’s mayors, as a group, are often politically in advance of their representatives at the federal level. In 1971, for example, they called for an end to the Vietnam War. And at their 2009 meeting, they unanimously endorsed the enactment of a single-payer health care system.

Speaking in support of this year’s resolution, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said “that we would build bridges in Baghdad and Kanduhar and not in Baltimore and Kansas City boggles the mind.”

Mayor Dave Norris of Charlottesville, Virginia, noted that “it is our citizens who are being asked to fund these wars with their tax dollars. And it is our communities that struggle when huge sums of money are being diverted from local priorities to military adventurism and ‘nation-building’ activities abroad.”

-- Rap Lewis

The nation’s mayors have called on President Obama and the Congress to stop squandering human lives and $126 billion a year in Iraq and Afghanistan and “bring those war dollars home to meet vital human needs.”

Overwhelmingly approved at the annual meeting of the U.S. Conference of Mayors in Baltimore, a resolution introduced by Mayor Kitty Piercy of Eugene, Oregon, called for the billions being spent in the two wars to be used instead to “rebuild our infrastructure, aid municipal and state governments, develop a new economy based upon renewable, sustainable energy, and reduce the national debt.”

“Mayors call on our country to turn war dollars back into peace dollars, to bring our loved ones home and to focus our national resources on building security and prosperity here at home,” Mayor Piercy said. “Our children and families long for and call for real investment in the future of America. It is past due.”

Being in daily contact with the sentiments of their constituents, the nation’s mayors, as a group, are often politically in advance of their representatives at the federal level. In 1971, for example, they called for an end to the Vietnam War. And at their 2009 meeting, they unanimously endorsed the enactment of a single-payer health care system.

Speaking in support of this year’s resolution, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said “that we would build bridges in Baghdad and Kanduhar and not in Baltimore and Kansas City boggles the mind.”

Mayor Dave Norris of Charlottesville, Virginia, noted that “it is our citizens who are being asked to fund these wars with their tax dollars. And it is our communities that struggle when huge sums of money are being diverted from local priorities to military adventurism and ‘nation-building’ activities abroad.”