Wilson’s Comments on Military Spending and Creating Jobs

According to the Times, Wilson “characterized military spending as more than a matter of national defense--indeed a bread-and-butter jobs issue for California.” Is Wilson implying that we have no alternative to military spending to keep unemployment down to 6%?

Housing and education would certainly be worthy replacements for defense spending, and could no doubt provide at least as many jobs for the taxpayer’s dollar.

Government spending of tax money and borrowed funds is obviously keeping our economy going and the stock market up. So what has changed since the Reagan Administration has been in power?

- Inflation is down. The corollary is that the national debt has doubled, masking the inflation, and the dollar has fallen. Eventually, only printing a lot more money (inflation) will bring down the debt or pay it off.

- Income has been redistributed by the government in wholesale amounts, just as it was by the Democrats. Now it is accomplished by huge defense spending, while the Administration claims it is unleashing free enterprise to make the economy grow.

It is time that we prepare for a peaceful future in which jobs and redistribution of income will be the result of deliberate government action, not from socialism in the guise of national defense and huge deficit spending.

We need to begin now to work out a philosophy of economics and government that recognizes that continuous growth and use of precious resources will not take care of the problem of jobs, and that we can survive the “outbreak” of peace, which Wilson evidently is afraid of.

LORAINE STUART

Whittier