Hamtramck City Council unanimously passes 'Move the Money' resolution
Earlier this week, a city council in Michigan passed a resolution calling for funds to be moved from the U.S. military budget toward social services.
On Tuesday, the Hamtramck City Council unanimously passed Resolution 2024-22, also known as the "Move the Money" resolution.
“[T]he Council of the City of Hamtramck calls on Congress and the President to move significant funds away from the military budget in order to fund social services, and to hold in-depth public hearings on the basic human needs of city residents that are unmet because of government appropriations for the Pentagon," the resolution states.
The "Move the Money" campaign is led nationally by the U.S. Peace Council and Resolution 2024-22 was brought to the city council by the Michigan Peace Council.
The resolution states that the Department of Defense’s budget for Fiscal Year 2024 is more than the military budgets of China, Russia, India, Saudi Arabia, United Kingdom, Germany, France, South Korea, Japan and Ukraine combined.
Hamtramck Mayor Amer Ghalib said prior to the unanimous vote that city council had the opportunity to be the first to pass such a resolution.
"It's basically to stop funding wars around the world and use the funds here for infrastructure, for cities that are struggling such as our city," Mayor Ghalib said. "This is, I think in my opinion, it's a good thing, and we hope that our government in Washington will listen to us and to the people of the United States. Because they just passed a resolution to use $95 billion dollars to fund wars in different parts of the world, and we need that money here."
The resolution notes that U.S. Reps Rashida Tlaib (MI-12) and Shri Thanedar (MI-13) are cosponsors of the People Over Pentagon Act of 2023 (H.R. 1134) which seeks to remove $100 billion from the Department of Defense's budget.
The resolution also references a 2023 article from the National Priorities Project, which states that cutting $100 billion from the Pentagon could, among other things, provide free tuition for two out of three public college students in the U.S., hire 1 million elementary school teachers, cover medical care for 7 million veterans and more.
The resolution quotes former U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower's "Chance for Peace" speech, in which he said: "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, those who are cold and are not clothed."
It also quotes civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr.'s "Beyond Vietnam" speech, in which he said: "A nation that continues, year after year, to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death."
A similar "Move the Money" resolution effort has been ongoing in New York City, which has been cosponsored by numerous city council members.