Letter: Eisenhower was right about military sapping nation of riches
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TCPalm
Glenn Rogers
05/06/2012
When Congress could not agree on spending cuts for the purpose of reining in the national debt, a six-member bipartisan supercommittee was set up with the same results: gridlock.
That inaction triggered a law passed by Congress, and the president signed legislation requiring Pentagon spending to be reduced by almost $1 trillion over a 10-year period. That is the law, but the industrial-military-legislative complex lobbyists are pushing back hard. Congress makes the law; Congress breaks the law.
The Friends Committee on National Legislation has computed how our tax dollars are spent and to show where budgets could most likely be pared. It is estimated that 39 cents of every tax dollar paid by American citizens is spend by the Pentagon. Compare that to an estimated 2 cents spent on diplomacy, development and peace building.
The National Priorities Project is another source of relevant data.
The Pentagon budget has doubled in the past decade. When the war is over we stay on, as in Germany, where the war ended 65 years ago. We have 560 military bases around the world.
The secretary of defense swears in front of a congressional committee that cuts in his budget would jeopardize American security, but why aren't we feeling more secure after massive increases in the past 10 years?
It was President Dwight Eisenhower who reminded: "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," and I might add, those without health care, those not educated to their fullest potential and those who cannot find a job.
