Consider context in using ‘S’ word

I very much appreciate and agree with Keith Peterson‘s Sept. 9 editorial. Conservative, right-wing people are demonizing the “S” word without context. Most of the federal spend for the greater good including Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, education, interstate highways, defense, and air traffic control is favored by most Americans. Yet, the screams make no mention of this fact nor mention that very few Democrats favor the extreme planks of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) platform.

Most Democrats believe in a mixed economy where federal spending for the greater good should always be a priority. The questions are which programs, how much to spend, and how to fund. I personally believe healthcare (with a lot of systematic reforms to make the system more efficient and much more robust), education (not student debt forgiveness) and climate change should be the federal government's top social spend priorities.

While I, like most Americans, favor a strong defense, I often wonder why the defense budget is always off-limits to budget cuts when it is well known that there is a huge amount of defense contractor bulge in the defense budget.

William Dean Bruno

Sugar Grove