Wilson’s Comments on Military Spending and Creating Jobs
Sen. Pete Wilson’s (R-Calif.) defense of military spending on the grounds that it makes jobs (Part I, Sept. 27) seems to me a poor defense of a program that has put the country into a ruinous debt situation. Of course he’s not alone in equating military spending with workfare--the political art to getting weapons systems approved by Congress is to scatter subcontracts among the states so that congressmen don’t dare vote against jobs for the home folks.
In the face of the world’s work that needs to be done, this is really a loony argument. Our inner cities are decayed, our roads and bridges need rebuilding, our schools, our parks, our libraries--everything that makes us a civilized society is sacrificed to a so-called national defense program.
It seems to me to make neither economic nor moral sense to defend the expenditure of billions of dollars for the manufacture of weapons of war on the grounds that this makes jobs.
We either need certain weapons and weapons systems for our national security or we don’t. Let’s have leaders who can tell the difference and not automatically vote for them all because they “make work.”
BESS CHRISTENSEN
Lompoc
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