To: President Donald Trump, The United States House of Representatives, and The United States Senate

1% Of Defense to Education Petition

The 1% movement:

No, this isn’t a movement to push the agenda of the already wealthy or powerful. Instead this is a call to change the way we think and to have the resources to meet the challenges we seek to overcome.

1% is a small percentage and is one which everyone should be able to comprehend. If you can survive off of a dollar than you can most likely also survive off of .99 cents. This is the premise of this movement which seeks to take 1% of the budgets of various departments to support projects and initiatives targeting areas of society which are lacking including education, social services, mental health, homelessness, etc. The targeted departments should be those which are highly funded and yet can survive with a minimal cut of no more than 1%. These departments are often always completely funded and therefore %1 or a penny on the dollar shouldn’t cripple or adversely affect them (i.e. defense, foreign aid, entitlements, drug enforcement, etc).

Too many areas have been neglected by those in government who through their actions have shown that they care less about improving societal services but are favor of popularly lobbied interest (war, energy, etc). We have found money for bombs, planes, and tanks but there seems to be an inability to find money to support the educational standards of our children, the infrastructure of the schools they are taught in, and their ability to gain affordable education past the high school level. We are left with an education system where good teachers are lost because of a lack of pay, a lack of resources for their students, and an accountability structure which fails those working hardest to bring about the success of students. Our education systems in American should gander as much attention as our surveillance, defense, and weapons systems.

To change the attitudes and results of our educational systems we must first change the way that we fund them. In 2010 the United States spent roughly $683.7 billion on defense. The 1% project would demand that %1 of the Defense Budget be diverted to assist education in America. This would mean that of the 683.6 billion dollars for the defense budgets $6,837,000,000.00 would be diverted to the sole purpose of improving our educational systems from preschool through higher education. If split evenly between the 50 states you would see each getting roughly $136,740,000.00 which would go a long way towards rebuilding our schools and providing an environment where everyone involved could be successful.

This money could be utilized to include funding for the increase of pay for those who support education (educators, administrators, administrative help, support staff, security, etc), the funding of infrastructure projects (repair old buildings, create new buildings, use of renewable energy sources for schools, maintenance of libraries, sports facilities, and structures for alternative activities), and funding to assist schools with basic resources (paper, writing utensils, computers, printers, technology). The money would be able to provide additional funding sources for those seeking college educations, could target more lower class and middle class students to provide opportunities for college education, and could provide financial support for continued education for our teaching population. All of these initiatives would work to keep high quality members in the education field and would drive other skilled individuals to join the educational field to provide their experiences to a new generation of students and staff alike. Truly the potential is unlimited and could begin the dawning of a new age of education in America.

This plan is something which could be utilized each year to target different areas of social need including education, social services, mental health, homelessness, etc. By taking different governmental budgets and diverting only 1% to social areas we would be committing resources to fix the many broken areas of our society. It would something that all Americans could support because it would target our society and issues important to us. We as a government and a people should be able to take 1% of what we already spend and divert it to initiatives which will create a more prosperous future for American society.

Why is this important?

That is the premise of this movement which seeks to take 1% of the budgets of various departments to support projects and initiatives targeting areas of society which are lacking including education, high education, social services, mental health, homelessness, etc. The targeted departments should be those which are highly funded and yet can survive with a minimal cut of no more than 1%. These departments should be so funded that %1 or a penny on the dollar shouldn’t cripple or adversely affect them (i.e. defense, foreign aid, entitlements, drug enforcement, etc).