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WHY I’M VOTING AGAINST THE MILITARY BUDGET  
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Bernie Sanders
December 8, 2024
The Guardian
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_ While so many Americans struggle to get by, the US is spending
record-breaking amounts of money on the military _

‘Elon Musk is right when he says the Pentagon has little idea how
its annual budget of more than $800bn is spent.’, Kevin Wolf/AP

 

Today in the United States, 60% of our people live paycheck to
paycheck, 85 million people are uninsured or underinsured and 21.5m
households are paying more than 50% of their income on housing. We
have one of the highest rates of childhood poverty of almost any
developed country on Earth, and 25% of older adults are trying to
survive on $15,000 a year or less. In other words, the US has fallen
far behind other major countries in protecting the most vulnerable,
and our government has failed millions of working families.

But while so many Americans are struggling to get by, the United
States is spending record-breaking amounts of money on the military.
In the coming days, with relatively little debate, Congress will
overwhelmingly pass the National Defense Authorization Act, approving
close to $900bn for the Department of Defense (DoD). When spending on
nuclear weapons and “emergency” defense spending is included, the
total will approach $1tn. We now spend more than the next nine
countries combined.

I don’t often agree with Elon Musk, but he is right when he says the
Pentagon “has little idea how its annual budget of more than $800bn
is spent.” The Department of Defense is the only government agency
that has been unable to pass an independent audit. It recently failed
its seventh attempt in a row and could not fully account for huge
portions of its $4.126tn in assets.

Very few people who have researched the military-industrial complex
doubt that there is massive fraud, waste and cost over-runs in the
system. Defense contractors routinely overcharge the Pentagon by 40%
– and sometimes more than 4,000%. For example, in October, RTX
(formerly Raytheon) was fined $950m for inflating bills to the DoD,
lying about labor and material costs, and paying bribes to secure
foreign business. In June, Lockheed Martin was fined $70m for
overcharging the navy for aircraft parts, the latest in a long line of
similar abuses. The F-35, the most expensive weapon system in history,
has run up hundreds of billions in cost overruns.

Today, as a result of massive consolidation in the industry, a large
portion of the Pentagon budget now goes to a handful of huge defense
contractors like Lockheed Martin, RTX, General Dynamics and Northrop
Grumman. That consolidation has been extremely profitable for the
industry: since 2022, these four contractors have brought in $609bn in
revenues, including $353bn in US taxpayer funds, and recorded $57bn in
profits. During that same period, they have spent $61bn on dividends
and stock buybacks to make their wealthy stockholders even richer.

These defense contractors also provide their CEOs with exorbitant
compensation packages. In the last three years for which information
is available, these companies paid their CEOs more than $257m combined
– with annual salaries that are about 100 times more than the
secretary of defense and 500 times more than the average newly
enlisted service member.

How does this happen? How do we keep handing huge amounts of money to
companies that routinely overcharge the American taxpayer and often
engage in fraud? The answer is not complicated. These companies –
like the drug companies, insurance companies, Wall Street and the
fossil fuel industry – spend millions on campaign contributions and
lobbying. In the recent election cycle, defense contractors spent
nearly $251m on lobbying and contributed almost $37m to political
candidates. Surprise, surprise! Most members of Congress vote for
greatly inflated military budgets with few questions asked.

The lack of accountability at the Department of Defense is not just
costing American taxpayer dollars. It’s costing lives. The US is
providing many billions of dollars to help defend Ukraine from
Putin’s invasion. When defense contractors said they couldn’t ramp
up production without more taxpayer support, Congress repeatedly
appropriated emergency funding, with roughly $78.5bn going to buy
equipment and services from the major defense contractors.

How did those “patriotic” companies respond? They jacked up
prices. RTX increased prices for Stinger missiles from $25,000 in the
1990s to $400,000 in 2023. Lockheed Martin and RTX raised the price of
the Javelin missile system from about $263,000 per unit just before
the war to $350,700 this year. Similar price hikes took place for
Patriot missiles and other weapons. And make no mistake: every time a
contractor pads its profit margins, fewer weapons reach the
frontlines. The greed of these defense contractors is not just costing
American taxpayers; it’s killing Ukrainians.

The United States needs a strong military, but we do not need a
defense system that is designed to make huge profits for a handful of
giant defense contractors. We do not need to spend almost a trillion
dollars on the military, while half a million Americans are homeless
and children go hungry.

In this moment in history, it would be wise for us to remember what
Dwight D Eisenhower, a former five-star general, said in his farewell
address in 1961: “In the councils of government, we must guard
against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or
unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the
disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.” What
Eisenhower said was true in 1961. It is even more true today.

I will be voting against the military budget.

* Bernie Sanders
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* military budget
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* health insurance
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* Child Poverty
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* Housing
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* military-industrial complex
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* Defense Department
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