To the Editor:

It’s particularly painful to pay taxes to this federal government this year. Your March editorial, “What Is Chaos and Whom Does It Serve?,” made wonderfully clear how the Trump administration’s use of our tax dollars is leading to terrible human costs in our local communities and in the Middle East as well. Our health care, housing, and education programs have all been so undermined by recent cuts in federal funds.

So where are our tax dollars going? According to an Institute for Policy Studies report, the average taxpayer last year paid $4,000 for weapons and war. And that was last year, before Trump launched the Iran war, which Americans for Tax Fairness estimates is costing us taxpayers $1 billion dollars a day.

I don’t want my taxes paying for this war that could have been settled by competent diplomacy before it began, based on the pre-war deal offered by Iran in February, providing even stronger nuclear controls than Obama secured.

Nor do Trump’s plans for the future suggest a change in priorities. He has requested $1.5 trillion for the Pentagon next year, a 50-percent increase over this year’s $1 trillion.

Ironically, while waging a war presumably to limit the nuclear threat, he is spending $87 billion this year, according to The New York Times, to enlarge the United States nuclear arsenal. Sadly, Trump’s threats to return Iran to the Stone Age reminded us of the terrible nuclear destruction an unstable leader could rain down on our whole world.

By Tax Day next year, we need people in Congress who will control Trump’s military adventures and make sure our taxes go first to meeting human needs. Then I will gladly pay my share.

Maud Easter

Slingerlands