an open letter to President-elect Obama

[unhappycamper]

Dear President-elect Obama,

You don’t know me, but I’m one of the guys that got to travel to strange and exotic places in the 60s and 70s courtesy of Uncle Sam. I have a DD-214 in my back pocket that says I was honorable discharged in 1973 after nine years, nine months and six days of service.

I was watching Rachel Maddow’s show yesterday evening and I think I heard this mess is going to cost us one and a half trillion dollars. That’s a lot of money, even for Republicans. I know you are busy as hell trying to get a handle on the economic meltdown and I’m sure you are scrambling to find out how to pay for all this bailout stuff.

Here’s a suggestion that should put about $600 billion back on the table.

The 2009 military budget is almost a trillion dollars. (It was only $302 billion when Bush^* took over in 2000.) Why don’t we cut the military budget to say $400 billion or so?

Of course we would need a few rules in place. I’d like to suggest:

1. All Veterans Administration and GI Bill costs are prepaid off the top. This should be non-negotionable – these men and women have paid the price and we should take care of them. Veterans are usually ignored after they become damaged and I would like that to stop.

2. The DoD can spend the rest anyway they want. It covers things like the costs of the occupations, bullets, bombs, gas for all those shiny-new $355 million F-22 fighters, those $10 billion destroyers, $11.5 billion aircraft carriers etc., etc. When it’s gone, it’s gone until the following year. Shut the doors and turn out the lights.

3. See number 2.



Thank you for listening,

unhappycamper

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