Of course, US military spending is astronomically high—exceeding that of the following nine nations. The real stinger, though, is this In its budget submissions to Congress, the Pentagon (a body that has never successfully passed a thorough financial audit) doesn’t even ask for all those yearly spending increases. Instead, the House and Senate still grant it more funding each year in the tens of billions. Regardless, Lloyd Austin, the secretary of defence, has publicly indicated that the Pentagon doesn’t require such sums in specific the capabilities…to support our operational ideas.”
It would be one thing if a thoughtful defence policy east planned this additional funding. Most of the time, however, a sizable portion of it is used for either itemsitemhe the Pentagon’s want lists (formerly known as “unfunded priorities lists”) or multibillion-dollar weapons programmes built in the districts or states of influential congressmen. How sIt is a mystery how things can be “priorities” when they haven’t even been included in the Pentagon’s massive official budget request. The department’s capacity to accomplish programme objectives and delivery deadlines will also be further strained if it is given additional funding because it cannot manage its current budget. So in r, in reality, it reduces military readiness. The Pentagon’s remaining economic restrainturther eroded by Congress’ arbitrary budget increases, despite widespread management failures that result in ongoing cost overruns and delivery delays on some of the military’s most costly (and ill-conceived) weapons systems.
In other words, local issues and politics based on special interests frequently take precedence over anything deemed to be in the national interest, which is detrimental to the safety and security of the United States. Most of these additional monies ultimately servebolstersprofit margins of signipowerfulons manufacturers like Lockheed Martin and Raytheon Technologies. As legislative proponents of increased Pentagon spending frequently asserted, they undoubtedly don’t assist our military personnel.
A Congress in Captivity
Democrats and Republicans alike, who are the key proponents of increased Pentagon expenditure, frequently back important contractors in their regions. As a cosponsor of the $37 billion increase to the Pentagon budget proposed by the House Armed Services Committee, Representative Jared Golden (D-Me.) made sure to include money for a $2 billion guided-missile destroyer that would be constructed at General Dynamics’ shipyard in Bath, Maine.
Similarly, his co-sponsor, Representative Elaine Luria (D-Va.), whose district borders Huntington Ingalls Industries’ Newport News Shipyard, was successful in arguing for the inclusion of sufficient financing to build aircraft carriers and attack submarines at that facility. Or take Representative Mike Rogers (R-Ala.), the top Republican on the House Armed Services Committee and a steadfast supporter of raising the Pentagon budget each year by at least 3 to 5 percent above inflation. He represents a region south of Huntsville, Alabama, known as “rocket city” for the concentration of businesses engaged in missile defence and related work.
There are even specific congressional caucuses whose main purpose is to raise Pentagon funding while thwarting attacks on particular weapon systems. These include the Senate ICBM Coalition and the House shipbuilding and F-35 caucuses. This coalition has been particularly successful in thwarting attempts to dramatically cut the number of ICBMs in the US arsenal while maintaining spending on the Sentinel, a potential land-based intercontinental ballistic missile. Senators from Montana, North Dakota, Utah, and Wyoming—all states with ICBM facilities or heavily involved in ICBM development and maintenance—provided steadfast support that made this “victory” possible.
The strongest persuasion tactic at the disposal of the armaments business to keep Congress perpetually increasing Pentagon expenditure is the jobs card, but it is by no means the only one. After all, the military-industrial-congressional complex’s business arm contributed more than $35 million to congressional candidates in 2020, with the majority of that money going to members of the armed services and defence appropriations committees who have the most influence over the Pentagon budget and how it will be spent.
According to a research by Open Secrets.org, a group that monitors campaign spending and political influence, thus far in the 2022 election cycle, weapons corporations have donated $3.4 million to members of the House Armed Services Committee. In addition, companies that produce weapons currently employ nearly 700 lobbyists, or more than one for each member of Congress, and spend additional millions to support think tanks that are supportive of their interests and routinely call for increased Pentagon spending and a more hawkish foreign policy.
Regarding MPs’ personal finances, the arms industry also has a lever it can use. Members of Congress, including those who serve on powerful committees focused on national security, are mostly free to buy or trade equities in military companies. So they can legally combine their financial interests as individuals with those of defence contractors.
The Price of Pandering to Contractors
Despite abundant evidence of corporate greed and ongoing failures in the development of new weapons systems, legislators unilaterally raise Pentagon funding. Given the situation, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the Government Accountability Office has placed the purchase of weapons on its “High Risk List” due to their ongoing susceptibility to waste and poor management. In actuality, overspending on a department that is already having trouble leads to the creation of subpar goods. It enables the Pentagon to fund initiatives before they have undergone in-depth testing and evaluation.
Such lawmakers, far from bolstering the nation’s defence, merely serve to feed the rapacious avarice of the arms industry. They ensure future acquisition catastrophes in the process. In actuality, a significant portion of the additional funds Congress provides for the Pentagon budget will be lost through price gouging, cost overruns, and blatant fraud. The TransDigm Group, which overcharged the government by up to 3,850 percent for a replacement part for one weapons system and by 10 to 100 times more for others, is the most well-known recent example.
There was at least $20.8 million lost in all. Furthermore, those numbers were based on a small sample of the company’s sales to the government over the course of two and a half years, and it wasn’t the first time TransDigm had been exposed for price gouging in its dealings with the Pentagon. In fact, it’s thought that these behaviours are common of many defence contractors. Such overcharges would likely total billions of dollars yearly if they were fully accounted for.
Then there are weaponry systems like the F-35 fighter jet and the Littoral Combat Ship from Lockheed Martin (LCS). Both are expensive schemes that have failed to accomplish their intended goals. The F-35 is expected to be the most expensive single weapons programme ever, costing the American public an astounding $1.7 trillion over the course of its life. Despite issues with its engine performance, maintenance, and fundamental combat capability, the House and Senate both included even more of them in their most recent budget projections than the Pentagon asked. Adam Smith (D-WA), chair of the House Armed Services Committee, is famous for saying that he was sick of “throwing money down that particular rat hole,” but later claimed that the F-35 programme was too far advanced to be scrapped. Because of its durability, the Pentagon has been obliged to restart older jet fighter production lines, including the F-15, which was created in the 1970s, to fill in the gaps. Cutting the F-35 may immediately save $200 billion in procurement budget if the United States is required to purchase outdated fighters nevertheless.
Advocates like Representative Joe Courtney (D-CT), cochair of the House shipbuilding caucus, continue to fight for the protection of the LCS despite the fact that it has no purpose and cannot even defend itself in battle. The Navy had hoped to retire five of its nine LCSs, but the final House and Senate authorisation bills blocked it from doing so on the grounds that the ships would be useless in a future military battle with China (a conflict that should be avoided in any case, given the potentially devastating consequences of a war between two nuclear-armed powers).
The fact that a sizable portion of the tens of billions of dollars that Congress is allocating to the most recent Pentagon budget will directly benefit large weapons contractors at the expense of military members should come as no surprise. More than two-thirds of the increased funding for the military spending measure in the House, or $25 billion, is set aside for the development of new weapons that will mostly benefit arms manufacturers.
Even though many military members and their families struggle to locate cheap housing or maintain a decent standard of life, just $1 billion of the additional cash will be used to assist them. In actuality, one in six military families now faces a food insecurity problem, which is a tragic reflection of the Pentagon’s actual objectives.
Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Boeing, General Dynamics, and Northrop Grumman, the top five weapons contractors, collectively earned more than $200 billion in “defence” income in the most recent fiscal year, primarily from the Pentagon but also from lucrative international arms sales. These already amazing numbers will increase as a result of the new budget recommendations.
Combating Contractor Greed
Congress hasn’t done much to distance itself from what is still referred to as “the defence business.” But if the elected officials of the people united and began fighting back against the avarice of weapons companies, there would be a clear road to achieve this.
Legislators have started taking action to kerb price gouging and enhance purchasing procedures for guns. For instance, the Senate Armed Services Committee includes a provision to develop a programme that would enhance contractor performance through financial incentives in its version of the defence budget. By tackling two key problems—delivery delays and cost overruns, particularly by businesses who charge the Pentagon above-market pricing to bolster their bottom lines—it seeks to make the Pentagon a more informed consumer. Additionally, it would prevent contractors from overcharging for replacement components and materials.
There are a few ways the programme to stop additional price gouging could make it to President Biden’s desk. It was also included in the bipartisan Stop Price Gouging the Military Act, an ambitious plan to shield the Pentagon from excessive contractor overcharges, which was introduced by Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Representative John Garamendi (D-CA). The bill will address legal gaps that currently let businesses to continuously defraud the Defense Department.
Eliminating vested interests from defence policy is undoubtedly hampered by a number of challenges, but setting up an incentive system to boost contractor performance and transparency would at least be a necessary first step. It might also encourage more public participation in the formulation of such policies.
The terrible truth about the national security state is as follows: This year, we taxpayers will pay for about $1 trillion and a half worth of national security expenditures, but we will have little influence over how these decisions are made. Usually held in closed session, the Senate Armed Services Committee debates and analyses its version of the National Defense Authorization Act. Rarely—and no, this is not a typo!—do the subcommittee hearings that are accessible to the public go longer than 15 minutes. Naturally, any discrepancies between the House and Senate versions will also be resolved in private. In other words, little is known about the yearly, seemingly blank check that our legislators sign for our defence.
Sadly, such a system permits lawmakers—too many of whom still have financial ties to the defence sector—to make decisions about Pentagon expenditures and other matters of national security without actually consulting the general people. In fact, important information is actively repressed inside the Pentagon rather than simply being kept hidden, and the issue has only gotten worse over time.
Here is only one illustration of such procedure: A yearly report on the price and effectiveness of weapons was published in January 2022 by its Office of the Director of Operational Test & Evaluation. However, it omitted almost all of the fundamental data required to evaluate the Pentagon’s weapons procurement process for the first time in more than 30 years. The director treated information that was before routinely given as though it were classified, redacting details about 22 significant acquisition initiatives. It’s simple to understand why the Pentagon’s officials would fight so hard to keep unclassified information private given the organization’s troubled history of overspending and under-testing weapons.
The national security state now lives a life of constant tax fraud. We are entitled to a democratic and transparent policy-making process. The military industry behemoths that so generously bolster politicians’ stock portfolios while making such huge campaign contributions are not the ones to whom our elected officials owe their allegiance.
Isn’t it time to put an end to Washington’s endless spending on national security?
Analysis by: Advocacy Unified Network
