Congratulations to Sen. Patty Murray, chair of U.S. Senate Committee on Appropriations, for her work on the budget debt ceiling agreement. Congress still needs to determine how the spending “pie” gets divided. I urge her to protect the peace-building programs from budget cuts at this critical juncture in the appropriations process in the State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs subcommittee.
Peace building is a wise investment in empowering vulnerable communities to be self-governing in problem-solving before conflict erupts in global hot spots and the U.S. military is asked to intervene. Programs like the Atrocities Prevention, the Complex Crisis Fund, and the Reconciliation Programs lead to long-term savings in taxpayer dollars, not to mention saving human lives.
As Benjamin Franklin said, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” In preventing violent conflict, peace-building investments are worth the cost. I’d like to leave my children and grandchildren a legacy of a more peaceful world to inherit.
