For link to the New York Times letters page, published in the hard copy edition of the paper on 3/18/17 and posted in the NYT online edition on 3/17/17, see:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/17/opinion/proposed-cuts-in-the-trump-budget.html
To the Editor:
Sean Spicer, the president’s press secretary, and Mick Mulvaney, the budget director, defended the budget’s proposed deep cuts in important social and environmental programs by saying that the government cannot solve problems by throwing money at them, that these social spending cuts would force agencies to become more efficient and reduce duplication and waste.
If that were really the case, why add $54 billion to the Pentagon’s budget, when the United States military is already by far the largest in the world, when it undoubtedly has far more waste and duplication than any other agency in the country, and when the United States already has enough nuclear arms to destroy life on the planet many times over?
If other agencies can become more effective even with smaller budgets, why can’t the Pentagon? The Trump administration is well on track to becoming one of the most callous administrations in American history.
ELIOT KATZ, HOBOKEN, N.J.