Our national budget was funded on tax day, April 15. This is a time to reflect on our priorities and who we are as a nation. Each of us can identify funding priorities in our collective daily experience from childcare and education to healthcare, national defense, and even nuclear weapons. With finite dollars and a myriad of local, national and international needs, we must be informed as to how these funds are being allocated.
Promises of affordability, reduced cost of living, and avoidance of costly wars have not coincided with reality. Here in Ventura County we see rising inflation, infrastructure needs, ongoing needs in addressing our houseless population and climate mitigation needs among others.
Our planet continues to warm with progressive climate change causing increasing scarcity of natural resources further promoting conflict around the planet. Coupled with the potential for future global pandemics, this is a time when global cooperation and collaboration is more important than ever.
Unfortunately, we are pursuing policies of increased isolationism, feigning international cooperation with disdain for the international rule of law. We have seen five of the nine nuclear armed nations at war this past year with China increasing rhetorical threats against Taiwan. The twin interconnected existential threats of climate change and nuclear war seem ever closer as noted by the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists who moved their symbolic Doomsday Clock to 85 seconds to midnight this past January. This is a grim reminder of our increased reliance on luck to prevent a nuclear catastrophe, either by intent, miscalculation or disruptive technology. The very existence of nuclear weapons threatens all of us, and everything we hold near and dear, every moment of every day.
The tax day release of the U.S. Nuclear Weapons Community Cost Project, now in its 37th year, finds the U.S. spending over $137 billion on all nuclear weapons programs. That equates to an average of $401.51 for every man, woman and child based on an average income of $44,673 robbing our communities of precious resources that could be redirected to the actual needs of our citizens.
In California we are spending over $17.51 billion with Ventura County spending $371.49 million, the cities of Ventura $49.36 million, Oxnard $58.47 million and Ojai $4.13 million. An average California family of four will spend $1,780 dollars on nuclear weapons programs this year, and as a nation we are spending $261,092 every minute on weapons that cannot and must not ever be used without threatening all of humanity.
Where does this fit into your priorities as you think about your family and the future you envision?
This is a situation that does not have to be, but one that will not change without public support and outcry. A growing national grassroots campaign called Back from the Brink is bringing communities together to prevent nuclear war. The movement calls for the U.S. to take a leadership role in actively pursuing a verifiable agreement among nuclear-armed states to eliminate their nuclear arsenals with four precautionary measures to prevent nuclear war until abolition is verifiably achieved.
Over 250 local elected officials across the nation just sent an open letter to members of Congress urging bold action to reduce nuclear risks and work to eliminate nuclear weapons. Local Back from the Brink activists have reached out to all of our local officials. Thus far over 60 California elected officials joined, including: California Assemblyman Steve Bennett, Camarillo Vice Mayor Dr. Martita Martinez-Bravo, Oxnard Mayor Pro Tem Gabriel Teran, Karen Sher, Board President Oxnard Union High School District and Ventura City Councilwoman Luz Campos. In addition to thanking our local leaders who have endorsed the campaign and encouraging others to join this effort, all citizens can endorse this campaign as well.
We all have a role to play in pursuing a future for our children and future generations. That role is unique to us and not necessarily a large role or a small role, it is our role. If our luck holds out, when our children’s children ask, what did you do when the planet was threatened, how will you respond? Working together we can make nuclear weapons a threat of the past.
Robert Dodge, M.D., is a retired family physician practicing living in Ojai. He serves on the board of Physicians for Social Responsibility Los Angeles and serves as the Co-Chair of the Committee to Abolish Nuclear Weapons of National Physicians for Social Responsibility. He is also serves on the Back from the Brink steering committee.
This article originally appeared on Ventura County Star: Tax realities — Nuclear weapons and our priorities | Your Turn
Reporting by Robert Dodge, Your Turn / Ventura County Star
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
