How It Adds Up

The principles for TrueMajority are revenue neutral. If Washington enacted all of these changes it wouldn't cost us an extra cent.

By ending programs that are detrimental to America's security and harm our nation's role in the world, these changes would provide $60 billion in savings. We can then invest that sum in programs that enhance security by attacking poverty at home and abroad, restore the environment and celebrate the dignity of all the people of the world.

Here is where we would invest the money

Double K-12 education funding.
Renovate public schools over 10 years:	$12 billion(1)
Reduce class size in grades 1-3 to 15 students per class:	$11 billion(2)
Modernize computer technology over 5 years:	$11 billion(3)
Double humanitarian aid to poor countries:	$10 billion
Offer health insurance to all uninsured American kids:	$ 6 billion(4)
Increase federal funding for clean energy and energy efficiency:	$ 5 billion(5)
Reduce debts of impoverished nations:	$ 2 billion
Fully fund Head Start:	$ 2 billion(6)
Provide Public financing of federal elections:	$ 1 billion
TOTAL	$ 60 billion

Here are the savings from Cutting Outmoded Programs

Bring home 100,000 troops and modernize Cold War strategies:	$20 billion(7)
Reduce nuclear arsenal to 1,000 warheads:	$15 billion(8)
Cut Cold War weapons:	$12 billion(9,10)
Eliminate Star Wars:	$ 8 billion(11)
Curb international weapons sales:	$ 4 billion(12)
Eliminate offshore corporate tax loophole:	$ 1 billion(13)
TOTAL	$60 billion

1. U.S. General Accounting Office, "School Facilities: America's Schools Report Differing Conditions" (GAO/HEHS-96-103), 1996.
2. Dominic J. Brewer, Cathy Krop, Brian Gill, and Robert Reichardt, "Estimating the Cost of National Class Size Reductions Under Different Policy Alternatives, Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, Volume 21, Number 2, Summer 1999.)
3. Michael Pons, Editor, Education Budget Alert, for Fiscal Year 2002, The Committee for Education Funding, Washington DC, 2001.
4. Margo Edmunds, Martha Teitelbaum, Cassy Gleason, "All Over the Map: A Progress Report on the State Children's Health Insurance Program," Children's Defense Fund, July 2000. The American Academy of Pediatrics, "An Analysis of the Costs to Provide Health Care Coverage to the Children and Adolescent Population Aged 0 - 21, Conducted by Towers Perrin" (adjusted for inflation),www.aap.org/advocacy.
5. Interlaboratory Working Group. Scenarios for a Clean Energy Future (Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Renewable Energy Laboratory) November, 2000. Also see, Union of Concerned Scientists, Clean Energy Blueprint. (Note: See additional funding mechanisms outlined in the Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Investment Act of 2001, S. 1333).
6. Head Start Bureau, "2000 Head Start Fact Sheet," www.acf.ddhs.gov/programs/hsb/research, Craig Turner of the Head Start Bureau, telephone interview, Jan.12, 2001.U.S. Census Bureau, "Poverty Status of People in 1999," www.census.gov.
7. Dr. Lawrence Korb, "A Realistic Defense Budget for the New Millennium," Business Leaders for Sensible Priorities, 2001.
8. Dr. Lawrence Korb, "A Realistic Defense Budget for the New Millennium," Business Leaders for Sensible Priorities, 2001.
9. These include the F/A-18E/F fighter, the F-22 fighter, the V-22 Osprey, the RAH-66 Comanche helicopter, the Crusader artillery system, and the Virginia Class new attack submarine.
10. Budget of the United States, FY 2002.
11. Budget of the United States, FY 2002.
12. Bill Hartung, World Policy Institute.
13. Citizens for Tax Justice.