Defense Budget

  • A Feel Good Victory: Nuclear Pork is No Longer on the Menu

    by Joe Cirincione and Alexandra Bell of the Ploughshares Fund

    A coalition of citizens groups and progressive House Members just saved the American taxpayers a whole lot of money. They eliminated from the stimulus bill $1 billion dollars for nuclear weapons work the Senate had stuffed in.

    February 21, 2009 - By Joe Cirincione

  • Concern over lost weapons in Afghanistan

    The Defense Department is unable to account for thousands of weapons supplied to Afghanistan's security forces. The findings raise disturbing questions about weapons that may have fallen into the hands of Taliban or al-Qaida forces, who staged attacks in Kabul this week.

    February 11, 2009 - By Anonymous

  • Follow-up piece in Huffington Post

    Joe and Ploughshares Fund Research Associate Alexandra Bell co-authored a follow-up to Joe's February 5 piece in the Huffington Post.  Due to the efforts of many Ploughshares grantees and p

    February 11, 2009 - By Joe Cirincione

  • Cut the nuclear pork from the stimulus bill

    Some Senators have stealthily stuffed $1 billion for nuclear weapons into the recovery bill. The only thing this will stimulate is an arms race. It must go.

    The Senate bill now contains language authorizing $1 billion "for weapons activities" at the sprawling nuclear weapons complex of laboratories and factories run by the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), including new construction, new projects and new computers. The House bill does not contain this funding, for good reason.

    February 8, 2009 - By Joe Cirincione

  • Don't fund nuclear weapons from economic stimulus

    Representatives from 23 state and national organizations, including Ploughshares Fund's Director of Government Affairs Terri Lodge and 16 other Ploughshares grantees, delivered an emergency letter to the Senate calling for the eliminatio

    February 5, 2009 - By Anonymous

  • Huffington Post: Nuclear pork article

    In his latest piece in the Huffington Post, Joe Cirincione covered the billion dollar earmark for the weapons labs in the stimulus package.  Joe contends that this nuclear pork is not only unnecessary, it is dangerous.  Read Jo

    February 5, 2009 - By Sarah Brown

  • Nation: Butter over guns

    Katrina Vanden Heuvel's latest blog for the Nation featured Joe Cirincione.

    December 17, 2008 - By Sarah Brown

  • "Cut nuclear weapons budget," agrees Rep. Frank

    "Madam Speaker," wrote Congressman Barney Frank (D-MA) in a statement inserted into the Congressional Record, "in a thoughtful and well documen

    December 9, 2008 - By Anonymous

  • Need cash? Cut the nuclear weapons budget

    PRESIDENT-ELECT Barack Obama needs money. "To make the investments we need," he said last week, "we'll have to scour our federal budget, line by line, and make meaningful cuts and sacrifices, as well."

    There is no better place to start than the nuclear weapons budget. He can cut obsolete programs and transfer tens of billions of dollars per year to pressing conventional military and domestic programs.

    PRESIDENT-ELECT Barack Obama needs money. "To make the investments we need," he said last week, "we'll have to scour our federal budget, line by line, and make meaningful cuts and sacrifices, as well."

    There is no better place to start than the nuclear weapons...

    December 2, 2008 - By Joe Cirincione