Defense Budget

* Mike Luckovich’s cartoon (Commentary, Oct. 3) perpetuates the common misconception that the Pentagon takes the largest part of the federal budget. It is actually at its lowest percentage in decades. If Luckovich wants to blame anyone for poverty, he could blame the bureaucracy that takes a large part of each dollar the government sends to the poor, or the large and growing percentage of the federal budget dedicated to the elderly, whether or not they are needy.

It is a cheap shot to blame poverty on the amount of money going to defense. Poverty is much more complex; the War on Poverty has spent about $5 trillion in its attempt to help the poor out of destitution. In addition, defense is one of the few things given solely to federal government by the Constitution.

B. DAVID JARZEMBOWSKI

Mission Viejo