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As tax day looms in a few days, city and state budgets continue to reel from the economic downturn. With tax revenues that funded services plummeting mayors and city councilors across the nation struggle to decide agencies to trim, and which to cut altogether. State universities and colleges have furloughed thousands of faculty and administrators while students scramble to get into fewer and fewer classes. Meanwhile, the one aspect of government that is thriving despite the downturn, is the federal Pentagon budget. The amount of money the US spends on its military is almost as much as the combined defense budgets of all the rest of the countries in the world. The US spends six times as much as the second-highest spender, China, also the most populous country in the world. As awareness and anger grows over the inequities of what our taxes fund, one mayor in New York state is making a bold statement. Mayor Matt Ryan of the city of Binghamton is planning to adorn the facade of city hall with a large digital counter that exposes how much the city’s taxpayers pay for the country’s wars. Mayor Ryan told Jo Comerford of the National Priorities Project, “When I first saw the cost of war numbers and made the connections I had to wonder if we’re ever going to get our priorities straight as a nation. It’s like we’re facing an attack on government. As a mayor, I can see so clearly what increased federal spending could do for the people of my city.” Since 2001, Binghampton’s 47,000 tax payers have paid nearly $140 million collectively toward the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

GUEST: Chris Hellman, Communications Liason with the National Priorities Project

Find out more at www.nationalpriorities.org.