The People’s Unfunded Priorities List for Fiscal Year 2025

Each year, Congress requires the Pentagon to draw up a wish list of weapons that the administration didn't ask for, known as the "Unfunded Priorities Lists." This year, the Pentagon is requesting more than $30 billion above the President's $895 billion defense budget request for FY 2025.

These lists offer a backdoor for boosting already excessive defense spending, a practice that has received bipartisan criticism. Even the Pentagon is on record opposing the Unfunded Priorities List and urging Congress to "reconsider this approach."

As President Dwight D. Eisenhower 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."

Instead of giving the Pentagon and weapons contractors an additional $30 billion to fund their wish list for weapons and war, the American people deserve to get our own unfunded needs met.

This year, FCNL's People's Unfunded Priorities List highlights four key areas where these additional funds could be better spent supporting human needs.

Reduce Housing Insecurity and Homelessness

Cost: For $30 billion, Congress could fund about 2.2 million new housing assistance vouchers.

According to the Department on Housing and Urban Development, more than 653,000 people were experiencing homelessness on a single night in January 2023. This housing crisis is made worse by systemic racism. Black Americans experience homelessness at a rate three times higher than the general population.

Programs like Housing Choice Vouchers seek to ensure low-income individuals and families can access housing through rental assistance. Federal rental assistance reduces homelessness and lifts more than 3 million people above the poverty line. The program gives families a choice about where to live and has been shown to positively impact children's long-term development.

However, more funding is needed. Overall, about 16 million households in need of rental assistance do not receive it due to funding limitations. An additional $30 billion would fund 2.2 million new housing assistance vouchers, including some costs for administering the program.

Addressing Climate Change

Cost: For $1.3 billion, Congress can double international climate assistance to address climate change and improve electricity access for millions of people in developing countries.

Climate change is disproportionately impacting developing countries and pushing an estimated 26 million people into poverty annually. By investing in international climate assistance, the U.S. can help developing nations expand the use of renewable energy, end deforestation, and strengthen resilience in the face of climate disasters. Currently, USAID's direct climate assistance for renewable energy, sustainable landscape management, and adaptation accounts for about 0.04% of the government's budget.

Energy poverty increases the risk of inadequate nutrition, vulnerability to weather events, and a lack of access to modern healthcare and education systems. A USAID international assistance program, Power Africa, is helping to end energy poverty on the continent. In 2022, Power Africa mobilized $234 million to assist off-grid solar companies in providing new or improved electricity access to 37.7 million people. This investment in renewable energy in Sub-Saharan Africa avoided 7.7 million tons of CO2 emissions, the equivalent of burning 8.5 billion pounds of coal.

By facilitating access to electricity from renewable energy sources, we can address climate change while simultaneously breaking cycles of poverty in developing communities for good.

Welcoming Asylum Seekers

Cost: For $1.6 billion, Congress could offer 30 days of initial support to approximately 450,000 newly arriving asylum seekers.

The Shelter and Services Program grants awards to localities, respite groups, and faith organizations meeting the basic humanitarian needs of new arrivals. Asylum seekers seeking refuge in the United States from life-threatening persecution in their countries of origin are not guaranteed food, clothing, hygiene items, shelter, medical attention, or transportation coordination to destination communities once released from the Department of Homeland Security. This deprivation of human necessities is exacerbated by a policy that prevents asylum seekers from receiving a work permit for at least 180 days after filing their claim.

Shelter and Service Program providers offer critical short-term reception aid and help ensure orderly and humane migration management for new arrivals nationwide. One Shelter and Services Program provider operating in two border states aids nearly 53,500 migrants a year for up to 48 hours at $250 per guest. At a similar rate, $1.6 billion could potentially support short-terms stays for approximately 450,000 migrants (similar to the volume of asylum applications filed in fiscal year 2023) for their initial 30-day transitions in the United States (please note: this largely does not account for transportation nor the longer-term care due to asylum seekers).

Reduce Child Poverty

Cost: For $30 billion, Congress could lift 1.5 million out of poverty by making the Child Tax Credit fully refundable and have money left over.

Allowing families with little or no income to claim the full $2,000 value of the Child Tax Credit (CTC) would have lifted an estimated 1.5 million children above the poverty line in 2023. The CTC is one of the most effective anti-poverty tools in the country. It lifts millions of children above the poverty line each year, and reduces hardship for millions more. However, too many children cannot benefit from the full CTC because their parents do not make enough money.

Congress can change this by making the CTC fully refundable. Research shows that boosting families' incomes improves children's health outcomes, educational attainment, and income as adults.

Public link

Please use the above public link if you want to share this noodl on another website.