‘Those Evil Interests’

Your penchant for disingenuousness and fatuity has reached a new high (or rather low). It is obvious to all who can hear and read that the principal special interest in Congress is Congress itself.

Furthermore, you discuss the hungry, the homeless, the elderly, the ill, the jobless, etc. It doesn’t take much calculation to come to the conclusion that the billions and billions of dollars spent in the last 25 years or so, have only worsened the situation for those groups. The special interests that again are obvious to all are those whose votes Congress is attempting to buy by appropriating monies for the hungry, the poor, etc.

The real beneficiaries of those allocations are the welfare bureaucrats, the consultants and the welfare entrepreneurs and not the nominal or intended beneficiaries. In addition, some of the other areas you mentioned are really welfare for the upper middle-class, whose votes are similarly bought by Congress.

On the other hand, when it comes to the defense budget, we can only be wrong once. After that, it is too late to do anything about. Furthermore, to paraphrase Charles Cotesworth Pinckey, billions for defense but not one cent for tribute, especially tribute to the three special interest groups mentioned above.

EDMUND A. HAMBURGER

Los Angeles