I’ll tell you what I think is wasteful government spending: $17.9 billion just since October, 2024 to help Israel with its ethnic cleansing campaign against Palestinians. That amount is 80 times the entire national U.S. Forest Service annual recreation budget for maintaining campgrounds, trails, recreation sites, bridges and visitor services across the country.

Since October, U.S. aid to Israel has contributed 70% of weapons and ammunition to the Israeli campaign, which has killed 45,000 Palestinians (80% civilians) directly while another 60,000 have starved to death in Gaza. All 12 universities in Gaza have been bombed and many journalists assassinated.

Meanwhile the U.S. has decided to allow totalitarian regimes to finish demolishing a democratic republic (Ukraine) while extorting them for their natural resources and insulting their war-hero leader. Now we’re going to close consulates in (former) allied countries Germany, France, and Italy — too expensive. All this “corporatism” led by billionaires is making America more greedy, corrupt and partisan — but certainly not “great.”

Randi Jandt

Enterprise