One Minute
for Peace

Numbers and sources

Friends Committee on National Legislation

This year the FCNL estimates that 43.4% of our tax dollars were spent on military programs in 2008:

• Current programs 29.8%
• Past programs 13.6%.

The past programs include paying the debt acquired during military projects from previous years, which they estimate is 47% of the total national debt.

For current spending FCNL includes, all funding for the Department of Defense, and funding for parts of the Department of Energy and other programs that have military purposes

FCNL’s estimate includes a total spending of $2,249,129,000,000.00 from the money we pay in income taxes.

Social Security and Medicare money is not counted. Those are separate taxes.

From these figures we calculated a total military spending of $976,121,986,000.00, which works out to $1,852,083.31 per minute. We rounded that to $1.9 million.

National Priorities Project

We also reviewed figures from NPP, which calculates spending slightly differently.

NPP separates the debt and VA into separate categories, but they still provide an estimate of how much of the debt was acquired by military spending.

NPP estimates:

• 29.4% was spent on current military programs
• 3.8% was spent providing benefits to veterans
• 19.8% was spent on the national debt.
  • Of that 19.8%, NPP estimates 40% came from military spending, or 7.9% of the overall spending.

If we organize their numbers in a way that provides the best comparison to FCNL’s, we get 29.4 + 3.81 + 7.91 = 41.2%.

NPP estimates $2,250,064,000,000.00 in total spending. That means $926,105,000,000.00 in estimated military spending, or $1,757,181.62 per minute, which rounds to $1.8 million.

War Resisters League

Each year the WRL produces a pie chart of military and non-military spending. They also include an estimate of how much debt is attributable to military spending.

WRL believes 80% of the national debt can be directly, or indirectly, attributed to military spending. This leaves them with a total estimate of 51% of the 2008 outlays going to the military.

We were unable to find an estimate of total 2008 outlays from WRL, but if we use FCNL’s total spending figure, we would get about $2.2 million per minute.

So who’s right?

That’s a judgment call. We selected FCNL, but you might find yourself drawn toward the figures of other groups. Our selection of one group should not be seen as a rejection of another’s. We have a great deal of respect for the work done by these groups, and we encourage you to review these sources and others to form your own opinion.

Why are these numbers different from other numbers I’ve seen from AFSC?

If you’re interested in our Countdown to Withdrawal campaign or if you participated in one of AFSC’s Tax Day actions, you’ve probably noticed that those figures differ from what we’re using for One Minute for Peace.

• For our Countdown to Withdrawal and Tax Day Action numbers, we used the proposed budget for fiscal year 2010.
• For One Minute for Peace, we used the actual amounts spent by the federal government, or outlays, in fiscal year 2008.

The fiscal year begins October 1 and ends September 30, so Fiscal Year 2010 begins on October 1, 2009.

To do your own research:

If you’re interested:

• Countdown to Withdrawal