The Mine-Shaft Gap
One of the reasons I dropped my subscription to the Los Angeles Times is that the Los Angeles Times dropped Robert Scheer from its op-ed page. Consequently, I was thrilled this morning to find an op-ed piece by Mr. Scheer in its once usual spot.
The column is classic Scheer. He raises an issue that ought to be discussed by the candidates but which is quietly being ignored by all of them: the bloated defense budget.
What should be the most important issue in this election is one that is rarely, if ever, addressed: Why is U.S. military spending at the highest point, in inflation-adjusted dollars, than at any time since the end of World War II? Why, without a sophisticated military opponent in sight, is the United States spending trillions of dollars on the development of high-tech weapons systems that lost their purpose with the collapse of the Soviet Union two decades ago?
You wouldn't know it from the most-exhausting-ever presidential primary campaigns, but the 2009 defense budget commits the United States to spending more (again, in real dollars) to defeat a ragtag band of terrorists than it spent at the height of the Cold War fighting the Soviet superpower and what we alleged were its surrogates in the Korean and Vietnam wars.
The Pentagon's budget for fiscal year 2008 set a post-World War II record at $625 billion, and that does not include more than $100 billion in other federal budget expenditures for homeland security, nuclear weapons and so-called black budget -- or covert -- operations.
And what are we spending all this money on? We are talking high-tech war toys designed to fight a Cold War enemy that no longer exists, including the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program, with its estimated total price tag of $300 billion, and Virginia-class submarines at $2.5 billion each. Who cares that the terrorists lack submarines for the Navy to battle deep in the ocean, for which the Virginia-class submarine was designed? ...
When pressed on why the massive weapons arsenal we already possess, which was credited with intimidating the Soviet Union into surrender, isn't sufficient to keep the peace in a suddenly unipolar world, defense hawks sometimes cite what they claim is an emerging threat from China. "The Chinese are designing new classes of submarines with increased capabilities," said Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.). "If we do not move to produce two submarines a year as soon as possible, we are in serious danger of falling behind."
The answer, as Mr. Scheer duly notes, is that defense spending is another one of those "third rails" that apparently were laid down with the Beltway.
Since the 9/11 attacks, the United States has been on a madcap spending spree on wars and weapons having little, if anything, to do with combating terrorism, nothing to do with the imaginary threat from China and everything to do with sustaining an enormously bloated defense industry threatened with extinction because of the demise of the communist enemy. The fact is, the end of the Cold War was a welcome development for everyone except for those in the military-industrial complex whose profits and jobs, as President Eisenhower famously warned, are rooted in every congressional district.
9/11 was a gift for the military-industrial complex, and its lobbyists, no fools they, moved into action. In the midst of the fear and hysteria with the concomitant hyper-patriotism, spending bills for new military toys moved through Congress like a hot knife through butter. Democrats, ever fearful of being called soft on defense, went along for the ride because some of those contracts would be fulfilled in their home states. Those submarines that Sen. Lieberman spoke so passionately about are built by a company whose home offices are in Connecticut.
Since President Bush's first year in office, according to the Government Accountability Office, the Defense Department has doubled its future planned investment in those ultra-pricey weapons from $790 billion to $1.6 trillion.
Candidates have been promising increased domestic spending to adequately underwrite social programs, to fix our rapidly crumbling infrastructure, to provide the funds necessary for regulatory agencies such as the FDA to do their jobs, but unless there are planned tax increases, the money just won't be there. The promises will turn out to be (as usual) empty.
The column is classic Scheer. He raises an issue that ought to be discussed by the candidates but which is quietly being ignored by all of them: the bloated defense budget.
What should be the most important issue in this election is one that is rarely, if ever, addressed: Why is U.S. military spending at the highest point, in inflation-adjusted dollars, than at any time since the end of World War II? Why, without a sophisticated military opponent in sight, is the United States spending trillions of dollars on the development of high-tech weapons systems that lost their purpose with the collapse of the Soviet Union two decades ago?
You wouldn't know it from the most-exhausting-ever presidential primary campaigns, but the 2009 defense budget commits the United States to spending more (again, in real dollars) to defeat a ragtag band of terrorists than it spent at the height of the Cold War fighting the Soviet superpower and what we alleged were its surrogates in the Korean and Vietnam wars.
The Pentagon's budget for fiscal year 2008 set a post-World War II record at $625 billion, and that does not include more than $100 billion in other federal budget expenditures for homeland security, nuclear weapons and so-called black budget -- or covert -- operations.
And what are we spending all this money on? We are talking high-tech war toys designed to fight a Cold War enemy that no longer exists, including the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program, with its estimated total price tag of $300 billion, and Virginia-class submarines at $2.5 billion each. Who cares that the terrorists lack submarines for the Navy to battle deep in the ocean, for which the Virginia-class submarine was designed? ...
When pressed on why the massive weapons arsenal we already possess, which was credited with intimidating the Soviet Union into surrender, isn't sufficient to keep the peace in a suddenly unipolar world, defense hawks sometimes cite what they claim is an emerging threat from China. "The Chinese are designing new classes of submarines with increased capabilities," said Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.). "If we do not move to produce two submarines a year as soon as possible, we are in serious danger of falling behind."
The answer, as Mr. Scheer duly notes, is that defense spending is another one of those "third rails" that apparently were laid down with the Beltway.
Since the 9/11 attacks, the United States has been on a madcap spending spree on wars and weapons having little, if anything, to do with combating terrorism, nothing to do with the imaginary threat from China and everything to do with sustaining an enormously bloated defense industry threatened with extinction because of the demise of the communist enemy. The fact is, the end of the Cold War was a welcome development for everyone except for those in the military-industrial complex whose profits and jobs, as President Eisenhower famously warned, are rooted in every congressional district.
9/11 was a gift for the military-industrial complex, and its lobbyists, no fools they, moved into action. In the midst of the fear and hysteria with the concomitant hyper-patriotism, spending bills for new military toys moved through Congress like a hot knife through butter. Democrats, ever fearful of being called soft on defense, went along for the ride because some of those contracts would be fulfilled in their home states. Those submarines that Sen. Lieberman spoke so passionately about are built by a company whose home offices are in Connecticut.
Since President Bush's first year in office, according to the Government Accountability Office, the Defense Department has doubled its future planned investment in those ultra-pricey weapons from $790 billion to $1.6 trillion.
Candidates have been promising increased domestic spending to adequately underwrite social programs, to fix our rapidly crumbling infrastructure, to provide the funds necessary for regulatory agencies such as the FDA to do their jobs, but unless there are planned tax increases, the money just won't be there. The promises will turn out to be (as usual) empty.
Labels: Bush Legacy, Pentagon
posted by Diane at 4:05 AM
2 Comments:
But it gets worse. Funding for scientific research is down at every federal funding agency. Mid-level research grants have dried up. Many, many faculty researchers are submitting 'security'-related grants. We are on the verge of being overridden by TB; in some places 1 in 4 teenage girls have HPV, and we are spending our federal research funds on 'security'. So the price we pay is not only in what STUPID shit we are funding, but in the important things we are NOT funding. And then there is the spillover into domestic law enforcement. As we ramp up the militarism, law enforcement gets increasingly militaristic. Parallel to the MIC is the P(prison)IC. And of course, prisons are money loosing if they are not occupied. We obviously cannot be an increasingly militaristic nation and maintain our level of personal and societal freedom. As my friend Elaine says, "this is how empires always go bankrupt".
And the inflation-don't forget the inflation. When limited production capacity and materials are put into items for which there is no consumer demand, then the remaining capacity and materials become more costly. A manufacturer making tanks will want to realize profits greater than can are being achieved from scamming Uncle Sam before the manufacturer will turn to making automobiles. The MIC hurts us all.
Post a Comment
<< Home