B-2 Bomber Funds

Re “New B-2 Bomber Funds Give Lift to Southland,” Dec. 2:

Why not call it what it is? Nearly half a billion dollars for more B-2 bombers in 1996 and another $15 billion likely down the line add up to a gigantic federal welfare program. The beneficiaries--people who usually want the government to get off their backs.

So the Antelope Valley will prosper, 25,000 people will keep their jobs and Northrop will profit--all at the expense of the nation’s taxpayers who will foot the bill for a still-unproven aircraft designed to fight the evil Soviet empire (now collapsed, remember?).

How sad that the U.S. economy still does not have the capacity to find productive work for all who want and need jobs, without falling back on tax-supported handouts via the military-industrial complex. (Have you read the latest employment cutback stories?) Add the B-2 billions to the megabucks spent to develop drone spy planes that didn’t work and we’d have enough to cut the budget deficit without shredding the social safety net for people not lucky enough to have jobs building B-2s.

Are more B-2s and drone planes really the best we can do?

SAUL HALPERT

Sherman Oaks