Letter to the editor: No defense increase

To the editor:

The military-industrial complex that President Eisenhower warned us against is growing in influence under the Trump administration, which is proposing a $54 billion increase in Pentagon spending and has just signed a multibillion dollar arms deal with Saudi Arabia. Currently, the Pentagon consumes nearly $600 billion taxpayer dollars each year, a sum equal to the entire military spending by seven of the world’s most powerful countries (France, the United Kingdom, Japan, India, Russia, Saudi Arabia and China). More than 23 percent of our 2016 income tax dollars supported the Pentagon. All of us, moreover, have become overwhelmed by the gun culture evident nationally and even locally, propped up by the NRA in support of the U.S. arms industry, the only major industry not outsourced elsewhere in the world, yet supplying arms worldwide.

The Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL), which was the first religious lobby in the U.S. advocating for peace and justice matters in Congress, is currently lobbying against Trump’s proposed $54 billion increase for the military. They propose that these funds, if reapportioned, could send 1.6 million students to college for a four-year degree, fund the entire EPA for 6.6 years, cover 12 million people under the Affordable Care Act or resettle 2.7 million refugees in the U.S.

Many of us are becoming increasingly aware of the importance of making our voices heard, and that, in fact, our voices ARE being heard. We must contact our congressional representatives to speak against these increases in military spending and on behalf of continued and diligent efforts toward peace.