Path to doom

I share the frustrations of letter writer Mary Ann Schmertz ("Our Best Defense," April 24), who makes the clear connections between deep cuts in federal funding and the reductions of thousands of teaching positions across the country, while the United States spends a disproportionate amount of money on a bloated military budget.

The U.S. 2011 federal budget shows 54 percent of funds going to war, while only 30 percent of funds are designated to human needs. Also, U.S. taxpayers pay $3 trillion per year to allow Israel to continue the building of illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

I think of the foreboding words of Martin Luther King Jr.: "A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom."

FRANCINE PORTER

Shaler

The writer is the coordinator of CODEPINK Pittsburgh Women for Peace.