Administration, Congress Wrangle Over the Budget

The national budget impasse still centers on who should pay higher taxes and which social services to cut. Even before massive U.S. occupation of Saudi Arabia, the President and both parties in Congress had agreed to maintain the high levels of military spending that have kept us a warfare state for half a century.

Cutting the B-2 Stealth bomber, the mobile MX, Midgetman and SDI, all weapons designed solely for war with the Soviet Union, could fund all of the $2.5 billion per month the Saudi operation already costs before actual war.

Now if we made those cuts, turned the Persian Gulf problem over to the United Nations where it belongs and stopped being the world’s self-appointed policeman, we could cut military spending by half in three to five years and transform our self-destroying corporate warfare state to a functional society. That is the bottom line Republican and Democratic politicians refuse to face.

JO and NICK SEIDITA, Northridge