Yesterday IPS.org reported
"A mountain of misleading
rhetoric from big Pentagon contractors has buried the facts"
Today, there's a
debate raging about the federal budget, our national spending priorities, and
how best to protect our national security and our men and women on the front
lines.
With the U.S. war in
Iraq officially over and our operations in Afghanistan drawing down, this is
the perfect time to stop partisan squabbling and rethink the way we fund the
Pentagon. Americans on both sides of the aisle agree that economic security
goes hand-in-hand with national security. A majority of us support cutting the
defense budget by 18 percent, or more than $100 billion, according to a recent
Stimson Center study.
It's time we started
spending smarter on our military and weapons. We need a sensible, balanced, and
long-term approach to national security.
But all the fear-mongering
about Pentagon budget cuts potentially spurring massive job losses makes it
hard to have a conversation about our national security priorities. A mountain
of misleading rhetoric put forth by big Pentagon contractors — who are spending
millions on lobbying and campaigns — has buried the facts.
According to the
Center for Responsive Politics, the top 10 government contractors spent a
combined total of more than $56.3 million on lobbying expenditures and more
than $9 million on campaign contributions last year. A number of these
companies spending millions on expanding their undue influence collect most of
their revenues in taxpayer dollars. Now members of Congress are parroting their
talking points.
The public has a
right to know the truth. First, shelling out more money for the Pentagon budget
doesn't necessarily mean more jobs. As my colleague Ben Freeman at the Project
On Government Oversight demonstrated in a recent report, the top five defense contractors were
cutting jobs while being awarded more taxpayer dollars between 2006 and 2011.
Over this five-year period, total employment at companies such as Lockheed
Martin and Boeing declined as these military contracting giants thrived, not
just in terms of federal contract dollars but in overall financial performance.
Apparently these Beltway bandits have no qualms about letting workers go when
it helps their bottom line.
Meanwhile, major
defense contractors' top executives enjoy compensation packages on par with
Wall Street CEOs. The chief executives of Lockheed, Boeing, United Technologies,
and Northrop Grumman all made between $22 and $27.6 million in total 2011
compensation. So when contractors threaten to send thousands of layoff notices
leading up to the 2012 election, it's clear they are playing politics with
national security.
Military contractors'
capacity to launch such a large-scale campaign to defend their profits is
symptomatic of underlying structural issues with the way the United States does
national defense. The Pentagon's budget has continued to grow unchecked for decades
because our national security policy is still mired in the Cold War industrial
defense paradigm. The world has shifted, and the Pentagon needs to make the
transition towards leaner, smarter spending to face today's threats, like
terrorism and cybersecurity.
Mismanagement and
Pentagon waste, not a lack of funding, are the real problems. In fact,
authorizing less money may spur reform. Instead of wasting taxpayer dollars on
building costly new weapons systems and more nuclear lab construction projects
we don't need, our military needs to reset its priorities.
The bottom line is
that when private companies exert so much influence over the defense budget
process, they divert resources away from what our troops and veterans need.
National security policy should aim squarely at protecting the American people,
not giving taxpayer-financed subsidies to multibillion-dollar corporations.
Spending smarter, not bigger, on defense will make us safer in the long run.
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