simard@loral.UUCP (07/28/84)
[Do not write in this space]
(The following reply to J. Winslow was returned by noscvax, so I
am posting it to net.politics.)
My concept of Big Government does not exclude military spending. I deplore
waste and pork-barrel spending in the military as much as anyone.
My posting was in response to the current deficit. So far, the
"Star Wars" proposals are just that: proposals. They have contributed
nothing to the current year's spending, and are therefore outside the
scope of the discussion (though certainly not outside other postings at
other times).
Recall: for every dollar spent on the military, $1.63 is going for
social and entitlement spending. I allow that much of this latter
is helpful, but the majority is socially and economically damaging,
destroying more prosperity than it creates. On the other hand, defending
the country is a bona-fide obligation of any national government.
Only seven percent of the military budget goes to nuclear weapons. The
overwhelming bulk is for the basics: pay and board for personnel,
support of facilities, equipment (from planes and tanks and ships down
to the percolator in the BOQ). Some people seem to be under the impression
that the military budget goes for new hardware. Not so.
No, the people who hang the trigger-happy label on Reagan are deluding
themselves. We cannot, as much as we'd like to, assume that the
aggressors in the world are only such because we're so bellicose. While
I'll accept that much military money is misspent, if entirely 25% were
cut (a very liberal estimate), it would amount to about 75 billion;
not even a third of the current deficit. And it would cripple our defense.
People eager to restore solvency to the federal government would like
to point at the military. The arithmetic doesn't hold up. Time to
face facts: the gov't is not going to solve our social ills; WE are.
As citizens, as individual human beings. And a strong defense is the
best insurance that it will never be needed.
--
Ray Simard
Loral Instrumentation, San Diego
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