Letters: Money for hypersonic jets

Re “High-speed aircraft fails test flight,” Business, Aug. 16

The Pentagon has spent upward of $2 billion to drop several expensive machines into the Pacific Ocean — all so that maybe, someday, we can launch air-breathing missiles from halfway around the world to blow something up. Maybe, if the technology ever works. Someday.

Meanwhile, the Republicans want to end federal subsidies to the Corp. for Public Broadcasting (about $400 million in 2011), turn Medicare into a voucher system so seniors can buy health insurance, and repeal the Affordable Care Act so insurance companies don’t have to cover people with preexisting conditions.

And meanwhile, there are bridges across the country that are crumbling, thousands of miles of potholed highways and hundreds of thousands of laid-off teachers, cops and other public servants.

But hey, someday that air-gulping hypersonic jet is going to fly six times the speed of sound for several minutes. Priorities, voters. Priorities.

Marvin J. Wolf

Mar Vista Heights

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