Editor of the Reformer,
The national deficit equals a national tragedy. We have seen this number 22-23 trillion, kind of a soft way to look at it. Does it look bigger as 22,000,000,000 U.S. dollars? Now divide by every American, it comes out as a taxpayer now owes $183,346. Shameful, but look at the children. Those people in Washington have remortgaged our children. Yes, Uncle Sam took our children to the banker and said, “I would like to mortgage the kids another $20,000.” So, kids, when asked what happened this summer you can tell them Washington remortgaged the kids and the new principal is about the price of a house.
What government can say America is the greatest when Washington demonstrates to the children Eisenhower was right?
Eisenhower’s farewell address to the nation was the final public speech the 34th President of the United States delivered in a television broadcast on Jan. 17, 1961. Perhaps best known for advocating that the nation guard against the potential influence of the military-industrial complex, which he is credited with coining, the speech also expressed concerns about planning for the future and the dangers of massive spending, especially deficit spending.
Look at this massive deficit spending today where the military gobbles up two out every three tax dollars, to keep 161 military facilities, of which 30 percent could be closed. Mideast occupation has become a make work project. A book came out a few years ago, it expressed that a 3/8 hex nut at the local hardware store cost 45 cents each, but the military pays $450 for the same nut.
Washington needs a bring-them-home policy. From Afghanistan, the soldiers there will tell you this is a waste of time. The Taliban have asked us to leave; the same in Iraq, where 10,500 American troops are occupying the country and the Iraqis are saying Americans go home. In the Pacific the people of Guam say it is time for the military to leave, along with Okinawa residents that demonstrate for the removal of the U.S. airbase. Do our armed services need all 161 facilities? Our Mideast policy and our so called friend Israel have become a gold mine for the military-industrial complex, where billions and billions of tax dollars are dumped every year to support the Jewish state.
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When Eisenhower talked about the dangers of massive spending, especially for the military, he was right. Look at today with a deficit of 21 trillion or 22,548,610,552,134 (National Debt Clock). Our senators call America the greatest country in the world. Yes, in Eisenhower’s day it stood for bringing peace to the world; instead, today our industrial-military complex calls for foreign permanent cccupation and is an obstacle to peace.
Ask your senator how we hear all the time this country is the greatest, then have to tell children to pay for their lifestyle. McConnell has banged the gavel down again showing every kid in the U.S. how the most powerful people in the country have resorted to the law of the jungle. The law of the jungle goes: “Go for the unsuspecting; second, go for the young; and “go for the weaker.”
What happened to: “We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.” Posterity is a noun meaning “future generations.” These people of the future could be your children and great-great grandchildren, or any people who are born after you.
You could ask Trump to add a 10 percent surtax to start paying down this massive debt. Kids should call them default bonds from an irresponsible government, and let all know you are not going to honor them.
Fred S. Morrison
Bellows Falls, July 30
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