Looking at President Donald Trump’s proposal for our national budget, I am reminded of the words of another Republican, Dwight Eisenhower. General Eisenhower became president after serving this country in World War I and supervising the invasions of Africa and Europe in World War II.

In a speech in 1953, Eisenhower said: “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some 50 miles of concrete pavement. We pay for a single fighter with a half-million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people.”

When we look at the Trump budget, we see a document created by people who have chosen to commit the thefts that Eisenhower described. This budget increases spending for weapons even though the United States already spends more on weapons than China, Saudi Arabia, Russia, United Kingdom, India, France and Japan combined.

To pay for those weapons, this budget cuts food aid to hungry children, health care through Medicaid, housing assistance, protections for our environment, Legal services for the poor, Meals on Wheels, fuel assistance, medical research, and much more.

It is time for us to stop buying more and more weapons at the cost of our future.

Stan Davis

Wayne