Another “endless war” comes to an end with a disillusioned nation asking, “What did we get for the loss of brave American lives and two trillion dollars in expenditures.”

Just like the long and expensive war in Vietnam, the net results are similar in that we bought a lot of yachts and multiple homes for the executives of defense contractors while leaving a wake of lost lives and broken families of those who sacrificed in these efforts.

Though it may ruffle the feathers of the hawks in the Pentagon, I believe a significant reduction of military spending is in order. The military-industrial complex makes enormous profits from a nation that spends 20% of its tax revenue on “defense” while it’s 14% of the National Budget. “What is the disparity?” you may ask. The fact that we borrow a trillion dollars per year for the past 20 years.

When a nation as a whole does not feel the pain of such boondoggles in their pocket books, they tend to look the other way as they purchase yet another flat-screen TV made in China.
The point really is that our true “moral obligation “ is to the future generations of this country. There is serious corruption in how money is spent, especially if it’s not coming out of the pockets of the current voters.

A balanced budget would truly change the behavior and priorities of a nation that doesn’t seem to have a perspective of just how many times we will pay for Afghanistan and Iraq. Though military operations have ended, we will be paying for these excursions for many generations to come.

Tom Turner

Waterville