By the year 2006, the United States defense budget will be about $ 400 billion. This is $30 billion more than what was spent at the height of the Cold War.

The United States is also currently spending billions of dollars in the adevelopment and creation of the F-22 Raptor, a new fighter jet that is thought to be obsolete to the current F-16 fighter.

Last Friday, the official peace movement of the Catholic Church, Pax Christi, came to Saint Louis University for an afternoon with their “Bread Not Stones Tour,” in order to make these and several other issues known to SLU students and residents of the St. Louis area.

The group brought with them an array of giant balloons describing what the defense budget is and issues that they feel are being ignored by people and Washington legislators.

These inflatables included a red cross with the number of children who are not receiving any kind of health care, a green bag of money that marked the contributions of special-interest groups (the military topping the list over the tobacco industry, and the NRA), and a giant graph that showed how much the U.S. spends on defense, compared to “threatening nations” (Russia and China).

The group also passed out “Pentagon Discretionary Budget Pie Cookies” that had the budget painted on in icing and helped provide awareness for students with a quick lunch-time snack.

Pax Christi set up in the quadrangle next to the Dolphin Pond and Shannon Hall around 11:00 am and stayed there for the afternoon. The group put on a 35-40 minute skit that involved actresses Shauna Faravaugh and Kate Lowes acting as Uncle Sam and an average American.

The average American says that 10,000,000 children are not covered by health insurance in the United States and that much of that money can go towards making head start and other educational programs available for more people.

Uncle Sam comes back with the argument that the defense department supplies millions of people with jobs, and that people will be hurt by the cut. However, the American is ready for this argument and claims that where the money goes so will the jobs, meaning that these people won’t loose jobs, but rather pick up new ones.

Later in the day, former Air Force colonel and developer of the F-16 and modern combat fighter tactics, Everest E. “Rich” Riccioni, spoke in the Boland Room of the BMC. “I’m not a peacemaker,” said Riccioni, “I have been considerably to the right of Ghengis Khan at times. However, I am upset how people misuse the defense budget.”

Riccioni noted that the United States is currently misusing its defense budget by developing programs that are of little or use, or are not effective. One example he used was the F-22, the Air Forces latest $190 million stealth fighter. “The cost will keep the plane stealthy,” said Riccioni, who claimed that the reasoning for the new plane is that the U.S. has sold F-16’s to several countries and is trying to keep up in a self-perpetuating arms race with itself.

Despite an anti-defense attitude one may pick up from the group it has called for reform within the Department of Defense as well. The group cited that thousands of enlisted soldiers are on food stamps and that big-budget, experimental programs like Star Wars that are believed by many scholars to not even be effective.

LaCompte pointed out that a 15 percent ($40 billion) cut would mean $742.9 million for Missouri schools, housing and whatever else the state may need.

LaCompte and other members of the group are driving across the country in a bus known as the Moneymobile-a tour bus with stacks of money painted on the sides that is decked out with four beds, an office (a small counter with a laptop against a window and a chair), and kitchen area. “It’s kind of dirty right now,” said LaCompte, “but we’re moving around a lot.”

From St. Louis the group is heading to Kansas City, to do radio spots, and to Crookston, Minn. The group will also be heading to Minneapolis, Chicago, South Bend, Ind., Detroit, Cleveland and Washington D.C., plus several other cities on the way.

Initially the group was not even scheduled to come to St. Louis, but SLU campus minister Mike Shriener convinced the group to come.

“I told them we had a really good Pax Christi group, it was a Jesuit school, and that they would get a really good feedback,” said Shriener.