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There's plenty of money, if you don't pay for tanks

Morning Sentinel Staff

Each time funding for real job producing programs is discussed, members of the Democratic and Republican political parties alternate shouting each other down on the grounds that the programs are unaffordable in our current economic crisis.

Programs like high speed rail, wind, solar and tidal sustainable energy projects to break our dependency on foreign oil, along with jobs in health care, education and infrastructure repair, are dismissed with the excuse of "no money."

This is a lie. As the parties shuffle the blame back and forth, they fail to mention that the money they want you to think is the whole economic pie is just the 46 percent that is left of our nation's budget after the constantly expanding, untouchable military portion is taken off the table.

We are told that we should ask no questions about the use of these trillions of dollars and to do so is in some way unpatriotic. The fact is that no one, including the Government Accountability Office, has any clear accounting of where the money goes.

War is making some people very wealthy. No bid contracts and endless war are a recipe for disaster. War profiteers and the politicians that support them are bankrupting us. The domestic needs of our country are only being given lip service by the elected officials who support this fear driven looting of our treasury.

Nothing will change until we, the people, speak loudly and clearly to all of our representatives, regardless of party and tell them to bring our war dollars home.

Mark Roman

Solon