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Defense not
negotiable
To the editor:
If Nol Putnam is unhappy with “$600 hammers,” “falsified tests,” “kick backs (sic), cost overruns that would never be countenanced in small businesses,” I would like to know just how long he thinks an allout federal program to feed our hungry children would be in effect before those children would be eating $500 tuna fish sandwiches with milk going at $89.95 the half-pint and cookies at something between $750 and $1,000 the pound.
Would those children (three out of five in America? I think not) be allowed to eat yellowfin tuna, which would endanger the dolphin population, or would they be restricted to albacore?
Who would study the question, who would decide the answer, who would inspect, who would certify? Federal bureaucrats, that’s who, and if the defense of the country, which is unquestionably a federal responsibility, can get out of hand the way it does, can you imagine what would happen to a program responsible to every school board in the United States?
Never mind the question of milk: Skim? Low fat? How low? Whole milk? What about the cows the milk will come from? What kind of grass have they fed on? How fertilized? (The grass, not the cows; let’s not be indelicate). Pesticides on the grass? Which ones? How is the milk going to be packaged? What kind of shortening is going to be used in the cookies?
Never mind all that. Just think for a minute of millions of children taking their government-approved lunches and dumping them into the trash simply because they. just. do. not. like. them. You want to talk about waste? Why in the world does Mr. Putnam think that the defense budget is so hard to handle? Absolutely the least efficient way to handle any problem in this country is to ask the federal government to take care of it, and the more we give it to do, the worse the situation gets, period.
The defense of the nation is of course a federal responsibility. Everything else is negotiable and I intend to keep negotiating for as long as it takes and to keep voting for a congressman like French Slaughter who will do the same.
Incidentally, I do eat albacore to protect the dolphins. That’s my budget involved, my taste, and my business. Let’s keep the feds out of it.
EDITH POND
Sperryville
95.0%