Defense Spending

The Wall Street Journal, as reported in the Virginian Pilot on 4/14/09, states that a naval fleet of 300 ships is "perilously small". Is there no limit to how much we can spend on defense projects when there are so many people in this country without jobs, homes or enough to eat? What about our education and health needs or infrastructure improvements? There has to be some point at which we say enough already. The defense budget was reported recently at somewhere over $ 500 billion a year. While the Navy wants more ships the Air Force says it is time to change to a new fighter plane. The F-22 is described in a Virginian Pilot op ed article as the "most capable fighter in our military inventory" but they still want a new plane; the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. People are holding "tea party rallies" tomorrow to protest government spending on domestic items but you can bet these rallies will not protest the amount we spend to build new weapons or prop up some brutal dictatorship or build new military bases in Iraq or Guam or some other out of the way place. Lets spend some of that money to repair the damage done to this country instead. The country would be made stronger if problems in this country were addressed with some of this massive funding.