United States troops are all around the World---and why? The Cold War is over, so why do we have over 50,000 military personnel in Germany? It is not like those personnel can run over to Amsterdam and have fun. The military has urine tests for drugs. We have 40,000 in Japan and nearly 30,000 in South Korea. The Japanese are not in imminent danger from anyone. And South Korea? Their forces would wipe the North's off the map if the platform shoe-wearing, pompadour hair-styled goofy dictator of North Korea tried to invade. Deployment of troops costs money---lots of it.

   We have ten carrier groups. One Nimitz-class aircraft carrier costs $4.5 billion to build. After that come the maintenance costs, the pay for the crews, and the ships around it that make up a carrier "group." Carrier groups cost a lot of money.

   Our economy has been seriously hurt by several factors, not the least of which is the phenomenon called "the Bush tax cuts." We should void those. In the meantime, if anyone is serious about cutting the deficit, we can look at the military. Bring home the service people in Germany, Japan, and South Korea. Unfortunately, the unemployment rate for returning military is over 12 percent. We can remedy that problem. With increased taxes on that little one percent, fund programs to rebuild our highways and railroads. Put people to work fixing and building things.

   Jeff Cox will be one of our panelists on Saturday's show. We shoot at Big Hat Books, 6510 Cornell Avenue, next to the Monon Trail in Broad Ripple. We will discuss whether the United States should extend its military in its present fashion.