On Tax Day, Congressman Alan Grayson, (D-Orlando), in conjunction with fellow Members of Congress and Brave New Foundation, emphasizes that people are losing jobs because of the exorbitant amount of money spent on the war in Afghanistan.
Congressman Grayson said, “Millions of people are being taxed simply to pay for the war.”
Reps. Grayson, Raúl Grijalva, and Barbara Lee have reminded taxpayers to take stock of how the war in Afghanistan is affecting the economy and job recovery in the United States today. During the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, approximately $300 billion have been spent on the war in Afghanistan.
“We should not be spending hundreds of billions on the well-being of the Tajiks, the Pashtuns, and the Hazara in Afghanistan. The money should be used to create jobs at home,” Congressman Grayson added.
The National Priorities Project has compiled an analysis of the costs of the Afghanistan war on the state and city level. The analysis concluded that we’ve spent $476.5 million in tax dollars from Orlando on the war in Afghanistan. That’s enough to create 8,148 jobs in clean energy.
“Billions of tax payer dollars that could be used to keep teachers in schools and pay for health care are being spent on a war that is not making us any safer. Billions of dollars are being spent on war during the worst economic downturn in recent American history,” said Robert Greenwald, Director, Brave New Foundation.
