New Congress must look at the facts

To the new Congress:

You are working to cut earmarks, increase the Social Security retirement age, cut mortgage interest deductions, etc. Consider these:

Corporate welfare. Subsidies go to farms that need it the least. Three-fourths of subsidies go to the top 10 percent of recipients (Heritage Foundation). Corporate farms use subsidies to buy smaller farms and capture greater subsidies. The 2002 bill increased subsidies 80 percent, costing taxpayers $190 billion. In FY2004, $8.022 billion went to corn, cotton, wheat, rice, soybeans, dairy, peanuts, sugar, oilseeds, tobacco, wool, vegetable oils, honey, etc. Tobacco kills, but our government spends to warn us about its deadly effects.

Medicare-Medicaid fraud. Possibly the most profitable crime in the U.S., fraud exceeded cocaine as the major criminal enterprise (CBS News.com/“60 Minutes”). Experts estimate that fraud alone eats up 10 percent of the program's total cost of $30 billion/year (Manhattan Institute).

Aid to Israel/Egypt. In FY2004 military aid was $4.79 billion and is the largest recipient. Roughly 87 percent or $3.7 billion in military aid financing was used to procure equipment and training. The Israeli Loan Guarantee Program guarantees repayment of loans from commercial sources to support the costs of immigrant settlements (Congressional Research Services, Library of Congress, fpc.state.gov/documents). Netanyahu pokes Obama in the eye while the U.S. only “asks” Israel to temporarily stop the settlements. Is this a weak forked tongue or what?

Conventional wisdom says “candidates don't question Israeli support; the Israel lobby will defeat you as an anti-Semite” (Mearsheimer, The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy 2007). We therefore heard no anti-Zionist talk during the campaign.

The new Congress has much work ahead. Do you have the spine for it? If so, get busy and good luck.

R.M. Gerhold

Wheeling