Editor:
I like the idea of cutting taxes, especially when I look at our trillion dollar military budget for buying high-tech weapons far beyond any reasonable need. We spend more on weapons than all other nations combined. Our only real military competitor is China, and we spend 10 times their budget. What if we only spent twice their budget? Do the math. We could save half a trillion dollars next year. Would that be a welcome tax cut?
But Congress plans to spend $140 billion to buy new aircraft carriers. The Pentagon wants 10 new Ford class carriers at $14 billion each, a total of $140 billion. What if we bought only 5, and thus saved $70 billion? Each carrier has 70 planes on it. One F22 fighter plane costs $150 million, so that is over $10 billion worth of aircraft on each carrier. Daily operating cost for one carrier is $7 million, or $2.5 billion per year for each one.
These huge carriers do not operate alone, they head a battle group which includes guided missile destroyers, anti-aircraft destroyers, anti-submarine destroyers, and other escort vessels including a nuclear submarine. China and Russia each have one of these carrier battle groups. We have 11. Is that reasonable?
Please check my facts and figures. Please tell me that I am wrong, that we aren’t spending half a trillion dollars on weapons to fight the Cold War. Tell me that our representatives in Washington are not being swamped by the weapon-makers: Grumman, Northrup, Electric Boat, General Dynamics, Westinghouse, Martin and Boeing. Tell me that there is no way we can cut taxes by trimming the half trillion dollars that we are spending next year on these extravagant weapons.
But if you can’t — then what shall we do?
Bill Jobin
Cortez
