A recent letter to the editor by Grace Braley (July 1) points out that the Pentagon is wasting billions on F-35 fighters that don’t work, bases that we don’t need and nuclear weapons that we can’t use. This sort of spending doesn’t help our security, but the defense industry argues that our jobs depend on military spending.
It is true that $1 billion in military spending generates about 11,200 U.S. jobs. However, that same $1 billion would create 16,800 jobs in clean energy, 17,200 jobs in the health care sector or 26,700 jobs in education, University of Massachusetts economist Heidi Garrett-Peltier has determined.
We need our representatives in Washington to spend our taxes on what we need rather than on military waste. Sen. Angus King on the Armed Services Committee and Sen. Susan Collins on Appropriations can be leaders in using common sense to realign government spending.
Joseph de Rivera
Brunswick
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