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

We can't spend more on war in Iraq!

Since 2003, the U.S. has spent more than $816 billion on the war in Iraq. Meanwhile, domestic human, social, and infrastructure needs have suffered drastic budget cutbacks. We can’t afford to sink more taxpayer dollars into renewed combat operations. President Obama and Congress: Fund what we need at home, not a new war overseas.

Why is this important?

Over the past decade, American taxpayers have sunk hundreds of billions into military action in Iraq. The $816 billion that we’ve spent on 10 years of war in Iraq could otherwise have been spent on domestic programs that badly need investment. For example, those dollars could have financed a well-rounded domestic program, including: provided 4.75 million students Pell Grants of $5,550; equipped 4 million households with wind power; hired 65,000 new police officers; supplied 5 million veterans with VA medical care; and paid 100,000 elementary school teachers each year for a decade. Instead, such programs have suffered from significant budget setbacks and austerity while our nation spent billions on military intervention in a complex and unstable conflict.

This is not our fight. Americans overwhelmingly oppose renewed military operations in Iraq: a recent poll from Public Policy Polling showed that 74 percent of the public are opposed to sending combat troops back into Iraq. In contrast, the majority of Americans do support investment in domestic programs like public education, jobs, food assistance, health care, and renewable energy and the environment.

With our domestic economy still struggling, our veterans in dire need of care and support, and millions of people struggling to make ends meet at home, now’s not the time to commit more funds to war. The President and Congress must look for ways to be helpful in the Iraq crisis that don’t involve combat operations and the cost to our nation that goes along with them. We need to show that we’ve learned our painful lesson, that sending American troops to the Middle East will not make the situation better.