Dear President Obama: Preserve our government

A letter from Friends of the Earth President Erich Pica to President Barack Obama urging the administration to reject austerity measures and budget cuts to non-defense discretionary spending and social safety nets in response to the 'fiscal cliff'.

• Friends of the Earth argues that significant cuts to non-defense discretionary spending and social safety nets would impair the United States' ability to support vulnerable populations and invest in future requirements.
• The organization asserts that a massive government mobilization, comparable in scale to World War II, is necessary to prevent the most severe effects of catastrophic climate change.
• The letter suggests that the U.S. government can fund education, nutrition, and climate change initiatives by reducing the military budget and ensuring that corporations and the wealthiest Americans pay their fair share.
• Friends of the Earth identifies specific actions by President Obama—including the Budget Control Act, a freeze on federal worker compensation, and an executive order regarding regulations and jobs—as having reinforced perceptions that government is wasteful and ineffective.
• The document warns that deeper cuts to entitlement programs could jeopardize the integrity of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.

APA

-1, & Pica, E. (2012). Dear President Obama: Preserve our government. Friends of the Earth. https://foe.org/blog/2012-12-dear-president-obama-preserve-our-government/

Chicago

-1, and Erich Pica. Dear President Obama: Preserve our government. Friends of the Earth, 2012. https://foe.org/blog/2012-12-dear-president-obama-preserve-our-government/.

Wikipedia

{{cite press release |last1=-1 |last2=Pica |first2=Erich |title=Dear President Obama: Preserve our government |publisher=Friends of the Earth |date=28 December 2012 |url=https://foe.org/blog/2012-12-dear-president-obama-preserve-our-government/ |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@misc{12012dear, author = {-1 and Pica, Erich}, title = {{Dear President Obama: Preserve our government}}, publisher = {Friends of the Earth}, year = {2012}, month = dec, url = {https://foe.org/blog/2012-12-dear-president-obama-preserve-our-government/}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }