Responses to Denver Post editorial on U.S. military budget
My thanks to The Denver Post for your editorial position that increasing spending for the military at the expense of other departments is unacceptable. Our military budget is already more than three times China’s and more than 10 times Russia’s. In a brief written for the Brookings Institution, retired Gen. David Petraeus and Michael E. O’hanlon said, “The United States has the best military in the world today, by far. U.S. forces have few, if any, weaknesses and, in many areas, they play in a totally different league from the militaries of other countries.” More money will not improve our security.
I’m especially concerned that this defense spending increase would pressure Congress to cut Medicaid because my daughter’s family and many others in Colorado have relied on this funding. I call on Sens. Michael Bennet and Cory Gardner and Rep. Diana Degette to reject any budget that increases Pentagon spending this year. Eric Wright, Denver
I agree that we should not raise the Pentagon budget at the expense of other important government programs that help provide real security, especially by helping our most vulnerable citizens. It’s also wrong to give the Pentagon tens of billions more when it has failed to prop- erly account for what we’re already giving it. The Pentagon is the only federal agency that has failed to pass a full financial audit since the early ’90s, when Congress passed a law requiring every agency to do so. (The Department of Defense announced on Dec. 8 that it is planning to undergo a full-scale audit.) And according to The Washington Post, the Pentagon buried an internal report showing $125 billion in waste over five years, a number that far exceeds the entire budgets of many agencies. Teresa Robertson, Nederland
Having been a Denver Post subscriber for more than 50 years and having witnessed local news coverage dwindling and often being replaced by The Washington Post, The Associated Press and Bloomberg News, I was struck by the irony that last Sunday’s Denver Post editorial concerned itself with the national issue of military defense instead of one of a myriad of important local issues.
Since when has The Post’s editorial board been stocked with knowledgeable military experts who can opine on global threats like nuclear-armed North Korea or the soon-to-be-nuclear Iran? Can’t we have a local newspaper that simply addresses local issues on its editorial page instead of stepping out of its limited area of competency and feebly feeding us global grandiosity? Dick Wisott, Centennial