Readers React: There’s not enough new housing in L.A., but we’re building a ‘space force’

To the editor: As is so often the case, the juxtaposition of two articles on a front page is striking.

On the left side of the Sept. 3 print edition’s front page, there is an article about the slow pace of building housing for homeless people in parts of Los Angeles, and on the right side there is a piece about California aerospace firms expecting a windfall from President Trump’s “space force.”

Just what we need, more billions spent on useless weapons of war while our people live on the streets in cardboard boxes and tents. Not to mention that the number of jobs created per billion dollars spent on housing construction would be more than those created by squandering the same amount on the military-industrial complex.

Noel Park, Rancho Palos Verdes

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To the editor: As aerospace firms pant for Trump’s “space farce” proposal, there has been little public debate as to whether his space agency is needed, whether it will exacerbate tensions with China and other countries, and how it will be paid for in light of Trump’s tax cuts.

Justifying a program simply because it creates jobs is an insufficient reason for spending taxpayer money on a new agency that duplicates and expands on the work of a current one.

While Ronald Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative was idealistically defensive, Trump’s space force appears to be offensive, in more ways than one.

Bob Ladendorf, Los Angeles

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