70 Oreo Cookies

When I was a child, General Dwight Eisenhower was worshipped. Not only
had he led the free world to victory in World War II, Eisenhower had
been elected President, twice. Because he had been both the supreme
military and civilian leader of America, Eisenhower spoke with unique
authority on those places in our national life where military needs
collided with civilian necessities. Here is what General Eisenhower
said as he concluded his eight years as President of the United States:

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired
signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are
not fed....."

Bold words. Few of our leaders today seem willing to recognize, along
with Eisenhower, that when we do not feed our hungry and do not care
for our poor but use that money to make guns, launch warships and fire
rockets, we rob ourselves. Yet according to the non-partisan Office of
Management and Budget, 63% of our discretionary budget for 2011 is
spent on our military and veteran affairs. Our national military
budget is now $700 billion dollars a year.

Ben Cohen, the co- founder of Ben&Jerry's, uses a stack of Oreo
cookies to illustrate the immensity of $700 billion dollars. If one
Oreo cookie represents $10 billion dollars, then the Pentagon's budget
is a stack of 70 Oreo cookies. In comparison to that stack of 70, the
federal government spends just 4.5 Oreos on education, half an Oreo on
alternative energy sources and a fraction of an Oreo on Head Start. If
we took just 7 Oreos from the Pentagon's stack, we could provide
health care for all the poor kids who currently don't have any at all,
offer Head Start for all the kids who need it, and eliminate our need
for Mideast oil by developing new energy efficiencies.

The United States has an ocean on each side and two friendly allies on
the north and south. We now spend 5 times more on weapons than the
next country that is not our ally and that country is China. While our
concern for terrorists is real, the vast majority of our national
military budget is not spent for defense against terrorists but for
the guns, warships and rockets that General Eisenhower warned would
rob us of our ability to care for our poorest members.

Our national budget is a moral statement, a statement about what is
important to us as a society. As the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq
wind down and as Congressional debates heat up, those of us who try to
follow Jesus have an opportunity to ask "What would Jesus cut?"
Perhaps Jesus might look at a military budget of $700 billion dollars,
or 70 Oreo cookies if you will, and suggest that the time has come
for us to follow the advice of General Eisenhower and use a fraction
of that vast amount to help those who cannot help themselves. Jesus
would understand the need. The haunting question is why don't we?

In faith,

Charles