The Franklin Reporter & Advocate Eight Villages, One Community
By Samina Sattar, Nora Adjir, Ayeshah Ali, Saira Ijal, Rana Jawed, and Anum Malik.
Last month, when most Americans settled their tax receipts with the U.S. government, only a few taxpayers were aware that more than $4,000 of their income –– equivalent to 50 workdays –– was used to pay for war and weapons, including nuclear weapons, aid to foreign militaries, and bombing related to Iran. The National Priorities Project at the Institute for Policy Studies recently calculated that amount and contrasted it with about $124 for school lunches and other nutrition programs, $16.11 supporting energy efficiency and renewable energy programs, or mere $19.12 paid towards the Federal Aviation Administration despite the dangerous shortage of air traffic controllers and a recent fatal crash.
That should stop every one of us in Franklin Township cold. More than half of Americans are struggling to cover the basics, while 10,000 Franklin residents, including more than 3,500 children, are food-insecure.
As residents, we look around our community and see families trying to keep up with healthcare bills, prescription costs, rent, mortgages, school taxes, groceries, and utilities. We do not see a shortage of need here at home. We see a shortage of priorities in Washington.
To paraphrase National Priorities Project director Lindsay Koshgarian, it is shameful when our tax dollars do more to fund bombs and kill children abroad than to feed and educate children here. Her broader point is just as important: our country is chronically underinvesting in healthcare, education, housing, and the basic supports that make life livable, while pouring money into a trillion-dollar war machine and the contractors who profit from it.
Now President Trump is asking Congress for a $1.5 trillion military budget for the coming fiscal year, a record-breaking request that would drive military spending dramatically higher. If Congress approves it, taxpayers will be asked to carry even more of the burden while families in towns like Franklin are already stretched thin.
That is why we are supporting Dr. Adam Hamawy for Congress.
Dr. Hamawy, a physician and a U.S. Army veteran, has made healthcare affordability central to his campaign. He supports Medicare for All, lowering prescription drug costs, taking on pharmacy benefit managers, canceling medical debt, strengthening maternal health, and protecting reproductive freedom.
Housing and affordability matter just as much. Franklin’s median gross rent is over $2,100, and the median value of an owner-occupied home is nearly $458,000. For many working families, young people, and seniors, staying in the community they love is becoming harder every year. Franklin is also managing real growth, land-use, and affordable-housing needs. We need federal leaders who understand that housing, healthcare, transportation, education, and taxes all land on the same household budget.
Dr. Hamawy has spoken directly about the rising cost of groceries, housing, electricity, and healthcare. That is the conversation Franklin families need Washington to have. Not another blank check for weapons contractors. Not another budget that treats human needs as optional and war spending as inevitable.
In the words of Senator Reverend Raphael Warnock of Georgia, “public policy is the letter we write to our children.” Policies and budgets are then moral documents that show who and what matters, who gets help, and who is asked to wait. Right now, children, families, and working Americans are being told to wait while the Pentagon and its contractors move to the front of the line to stuff their bank accounts with our tax dollars.
We can choose differently. We can invest in healthcare, housing, nutrition, education, and communities like Franklin. We can send someone to Congress who will fight for a security that starts with people being able to afford to live, work, raise children, and grow old with dignity.
We can choose Dr. Adam Hamawy for Congress.
