The Shame of Lexington, AEI, and Our Media
Open letter to Trish Choate of Scripps Howard News Service
Dear Ms. Choate-
I just came across an article attributed to you:
Plan for military could mean cuts
Bush’s call to increase Army, Marines might mean Air Force has to trim personnel
By Trish Choate/Scripps Howard News Service
December 23, 2006
- in which you cite speakers from the nonpartisan and nonprofit Lexington Institute and American Enterprise Institute, crying poor over part of a defense budget that is now well over half a trillion dollars a year.
What has happened to our values in this country?
You don’t address the immense opportunity cost in the present expenditures. Here is a comment on the $378 billion that the Bush administration has already spent, solely on Iraq, from the nonpartisan and nonprofit National Priorities Project:
As NPP Research Director, Dr. Anita Dancs, testified at a congressional forum, $378 billion could pay for all of the following: health care coverage for all uninsured children during this entire war; four-year scholarships to a public university for all of this year’s graduating seniors; construction of 500,000 affordable housing units; the Coast Guard’s estimate on funds needed for port security; tripling the energy conservation budget in the US Department of Energy; and reducing this year’s budget deficit by half.
You don’t address the moral issue of putting so much of our national treasure into murder and mayhem instead of building up the human condition. In a time when much is made of holocaust denial at a conference in Iran, it is common to dismiss without serious examination the report of 655,000 excess deaths in Iraq due to the U.S. invasion. The latter report was compiled by a team of internationally respected researchers with data collected at considerable personal risk.
And you don’t address the fiscal madness of the Bush administration spending, outside of Social Security, roughly one dollar for every 68 cents it takes in, or the irresponsibility of the Pentagon losing track of $2.3 trillion.
I urge you to take a stand, to help point out the madness that so much of our press is telling the American people to comply with.
Sincerely,
Hal Snyder, M.D.
[Note: the qualifier, "outside of Social Security", in the second to last paragraph was added after emailing to Ms. Choate, and the number corrected from 69 cents to 68. - hs]