Letter: Feds, make smarter investments

In his State of the Union speech, President Barack Obama separated domestic and foreign policy, perhaps understandably, but let’s connect some dots here.

The president mentioned the need to invest in our infrastructure, which is sorely needed, but also a job and economic stimulator. Specifically, he noted there are 70,000 bridges needing repair.

Some say there’s no money for this, but of course there is, it’s just misappropriated in our bloated Pentagon budget, including useless, exorbitant Cold War weapons systems, maintaining foreign military bases (many in countries that can defend themselves), inane plans for nuclear weapons “modernization,” and the $7 billion per month we spend on a pointless war in Afghanistan.

Let’s bring our troops and war dollars home. Put that money, and some of those troops, to work rebuilding our bridges, roads and schools and creating green energy technology.

Some in Congress want to protect the Pentagon from cuts by cutting even more from education, job training, Medicare and Social Security benefits. The U.S. spends almost as much on the military as the rest of the world’s nations combined. Is that helping rebuild our economy and our communities? Surely we can make smarter investments with our tax dollars.

Jim Gayden

Vancouver