The Honorable Mr.

Barack Obama
President of the United States
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500

Dear President Obama:

As you know, America spends more on its military than any other country in the world. In fact,
America spends almost half of what the total of the rest of the world spends, or in short,
America’s military budget makes up 48% of the total world’s budget, or at least it did in 2008.
This is an issue of concern for Americans because their tax dollars are not going to a policy or
program they support given that 60% of American’s oppose the war in Iraq according to a CNN
Opinion/ Research Cooperation Poll. My name is Amanda Labrado, and I attend Middle College
High School in San Mateo, California. America is currently facing an economic recession, and
the cost of a number of things has gone up, such as the cost of units in colleges, or the cost of a
donut. Yet the U.S. continues to use billions of dollars overseas funding a military operation that
a small number of people support, meaning they are spending money that could be used to bail
out the country, money that could be used toward creating budgets that spend cash that America
does have. The military budget also funds the casualties that take place overseas; the military-
industrial complex practically forces congress to buy the army more weapons than necessary
which results in less spent on essential military training. Furthermore, if we were to stop
spending so much on the military, i.e. stop deploying troops to Afghanistan who cost between
$500,000 and a $1 million a person, and start spending more on education – since the US spent
47.8% or $479.1 billion more on its military than its education in 2009 – America might prevent
wars from occurring in the future more effectively; this is because wars are fought by ignorant
people who do not know, or who are not willing to discuss, other options. The cost of an
education right now is very expensive, and it should not be, for as you said in your state of the
union address, “in the United States of America, no one should go broke because they chose to
go to college”. Therefore, if you were to stop sending billions of dollars worth of troops and
ammo overseas, and start pulling out of Afghanistan and Iraq, then maybe America could
allocate some of those funds toward education and the budget deficit that is just getting bigger
every year. But, until Bin Laden is captured, and Al-Qaeda and the Taliban are eliminated, the
war will go on.

Sincerely,

Amanda M. Labrado
761 Easton Ave.
San Bruno, Ca 94066
9 May 2010