Get News & Views Updates
Most Popular This Week
Popular content
Today's Top News
The Congressional 'Supercommittee': Debt Panel or Death Panel?
When it comes to government handouts, there's no bigger welfare queens than the Pentagon and the legions of mercenaries and weapons manufacturers profiting from America's half-dozen ongoing wars and its global empire of military bases. In fact, more than half of U.S. income taxes are funneled, not to welfare mothers and underprivileged youths, but to what President Eisenhower called the “military-industrial complex.”
The Lockheed Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighter is unveiled in a ceremony in 2006. Chasing al-Qaida and fighting two wars, the U.S. stepped up military spending by $1.3 trillion in the 10 years following the Sept. 11 attacks. Defense-industry profits nearly quadrupled. (LM OTERO / AP)
Endless war and a global empire are costly, as it turns out, with U.S. military spending roughly doubling since 2001 thanks largely to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. And that's not counting the moral costs associated with being a nation whose greatest export these days is violence, the perpetration of which Barack Obama notably defended even as he was accepting a Nobel Prize for Peace. Military aggression doesn't just take its toll on those of the receiving end of America's liberating Hellfire missiles and cluster bombs—our last domestically manufactured goods.
Yet despite the riches it receives courtesy of the American taxpayer, no group feels more entitled than military contractors and their intellectual mercenaries on Capitol Hill fighting for ever more handouts, fear-mongering talking points in hand. War profiteers have even banded together to safeguard the money they make from death and destruction, forming the group “Second to None” to counter the “threat” of military spending cuts.
Unfortunately for taxpayers and poor foreigners alike, no one in a position of real power, conservative Republican or liberal Democrat, is seriously entertaining the idea of dismantling the U.S. empire. And that's a shame, because U.S. spending on “national security” has become so divorced from the idea of defense and so bloated – coming in at more than $1 trillion a year, according to some estimates – that it now roughly equals what the rest of the world spends on bombs and tanks combined. But that trillion-dollar-a-year entitlement is not the one lawmakers are talking about cutting.
Take Washington Senator Patty Murray, co-chair of the recently created debt commission tasked with slashing federal spending. Murray is generally considered one of the more liberal members of the Senate and is the only woman on the panel, with that latter fact alone enough to win her praise from some progressive groups. One organization, MomsRising, is even urging the nation's mothers to sign a petition preemptively praising Murray’s work on the panel, promising to “deliver a real superhero cape, tennis shoes with wings, and your signatures directly to Senator Murray.”
We suggest that mothers who don't want their children sent off to kill and be killed in unjust wars hold off for a bit. After all, there's nothing heroic – or motherly – about sending other people's kids off to kill and be killed in a foreign land, something Murray has voted to do time and again.
Though she laudably opposed the invasion of Iraq, Murray has consistently voted to fund America's wars and has been silent in the wake of evidence her fellow Democrat, President Obama, has killed dozens if not hundreds of mothers and their children as part of his expansion of the war on terror. Indeed, according to Amnesty Internatinoal 14 women and 21 children in a single cluster bomb attack in Yemen. At least 140 civilians were killed in a single strike as part of Obama's escalated war in Afghanistan, including 93 children. Yet Murray has provided the administration a blank check, only meekly repeating boilerplate platitudes such as the need to “ask tough questions” and “insist on a clear plan,” which we suspect doesn't mean a whole lot to any Afghan mothers.
Murray has been such a reliable friend of the military-industrial complex that she has taken in well over a quarter-million dollars from the war industry in the last four years alone, more than any other member of the debt panel she co-chairs. And Murray's worth every penny. In a recent ad, she celebrates the fact she “put Boeing back in the game” to win a lucrative Air Force contract it originally lost – you can't make this up – after it was caught committing bribery, which is illegal when it involves government procurement officials but not, so it seems, politicians. It's hard to find a better example of the endemic corruption in Washington than a corrupt lawmaker helping a corrupt company get a contract it gained – and at one point, lost – because of corruption.
“Senator Murray leveled the playing field,” the senator's ad boasts. “Because we should build these planes. And that means jobs.” Jobs for Americans, obviously: it would be macabre to brag about creating work for Pakistani funeral directors.
Don't expect much from Murray's colleagues on the debt committee, either. According to the Associated Press, the six Republicans and six Democrats on the debt panel “represent states where the biggest military contractors – Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics Corp., Raytheon Co. and Boeing Co. – build missiles, aircraft, jet fighters and tanks while employing tens of thousands of workers.” That means they're even more anxious to please the military establishment and weapons manufacturers than your average politician. Collectively, members of the committee tasked with cutting $1.2 trillion in federal spending have, since 2007, taken in around $1 million in campaign contributions from military contractors.
And as Robert Greenwald and Derrick Crowe observe, “these companies plan to 'cash in' on these donations to stop real cuts to big war contracts.” They have good reason to feel optimistic. Just look at who else is on the panel.
Senator Max Baucus, a Democrat from Montana, has been an even more reliable supporter of the warfare state than Murray, having backed the 2003 invasion of Iraq and every subsequent escalation of the war on terror, a fact that's netted him more than $139,000 in campaign cash over the last four years, second only to his colleague from Washington. Massachusetts Senator John Kerry, meanwhile, has been in favor of just about every U.S. military intervention in the last two decades, from Iraq to Libya. Maryland Congressman Chris Van Hollen's top campaign contributor is none other than Lockheed Martin.
And while some self-styled spokesmen for the Tea Party have said they are open to cutting military spending, the same can't be said for Republicans on the committee. Asked about the impact of reduced military spending on his state's war industry, Pennsylvania Senator Pat Toomey responded that “we all have very good reasons to try to prevent” such cuts. So much for that.
The Obama administration has also been clear about its desire to safeguard spending for empire. Leon Panetta, the president's hand-picked choice to lead the Defense Department, even declared that cuts to the military “would do real damage to our security, our troops and their families, and our military's ability to protect the nation.” So much for subtlety. His suggestion? Raise taxes and cut Social Security and Medicare instead.
Like a James Bond villain, you have to hand military contractors this: they're diabolical, yes, but they're also pretty smart. Beyond just campaign donations, they have spent decades consciously spreading their operations across the country to the point that no congressional district lacks its own well-paying weapons factory. As a result, almost every lawmaker is in their pocket, with even the staunchest conservatives channeling their inner Keynesians to promote militarism as a jobs creator.
Fifty years ago President Eisenhower warned Americans that this would happen – that the rise of a massive arms industry, an industry that profits from war and loses money as a result of peace, threatened to “endanger our liberties [and] democratic processes,” creating an institutional incentive for ever more spending on war and empire. That's no longer a threat, these days: it's the sad reality.
Doing something about it will require a lot more than politely asking our politicians to, pretty please, stop funneling our money to those who profit from war. Instead of sending superhero capes and tennis shoes to our lawmakers' offices, as the group MomsRising suggests, we ought to be occupying them; instead of just sending letters, we ought to be engaging in direct action and demanding that they end the wars that have wracked the U.S. economy. Politicians, being politicians, respond to pressure, not politeness.
Comments
Note: Disqus 2012 is best viewed on an up to date browser. Click here for information. Instructions for how to sign up to comment can be viewed here. Our Comment Policy can be viewed here. Please follow the guidelines. Note to Readers: Spam Filter May Capture Legitimate Comments...
24 Comments so far
Show AllSenator Patty Murray is hardly a profile in courage - she bends whichever way the corporate winds blow.
Yes, very true Ocean, but I would add that she is no different than 99% of her MIC criminals in Congress. Wait...maybe 1% is too high! That would make it around 5 anti- MIC non-criminals in Congress.
"Unfortunately for taxpayers and poor foreigners alike, no one in a position of real power, conservative Republican or liberal Democrat, is seriously entertaining the idea of dismantling the U.S. empire"
Conservative oligarchy parasites and their criminal Supreme Court's "Citizen's United" transformed political whores into mass murderers.
For many years, Senator "Scoop" Jackson was known as the "Senator from Boeing."
About the only difference is that the new "Senator from Boeing" wears high heels and a bra.
We the People, once citizens of the late Constitutional Republic of the United States of America are now but subjects of the American Empire and are rapidly devolving into serfs of the American Oligarchy.
The only value we have to the "Elite" is to provide low cost labor to build weapons and to provide cannon fodder for our ever increasing wars.
If some starve or die, it makes no difference to the Oligarchy. There are plenty more who will fight each other for the chance to work eighteen hours a day for a pittance, just to try to feed their kids something.
Boeing is also the Contractor building the "Great Wall" between Mexico and our Southwestern border, which is just about as monumentally insane from an Economic and moral standpoint.
Bombers, Bombs, Fighter Jets and brick-a-brack walls for our countries Defence...
What A deliberatley senseless abandonment of vital priorities our "Leaders" involve us in.
Money to kill, maim, torture, bomb, seperate and destroy as the "homeland" rots from within. That is their idea of "Homeland Security"..
What A cruel, preposterous LIE.
Media: I loved watching you and that other Lady from "Code Pink" scream bloody murderer to Donald Rumsfeldt..You women stand tall in my book and more of us need to take up the cause with the same spirit you radiate...
Most Europeans have many more freedoms and Rights because like you, they do not fear their Government...Americans need to get out more and show this Government that we are not going to take this Bullshit sitting down....We somehow need to make them fear us, nothing short of that seems to be working...
Thank you Media and Code Pink, for all your Bravado and Moxie....
On 9/11 both Boeing and Northrop Grumman took out full-page ads in the Washington Post (and probably papers throughout the country) telling us to "Never Forget" 9/11. That's tax our dollars that we give defense contractors via multi-billion-dollar contracts coming back to pay for ads telling us to keep the wars going so they can keep profiting from them. Gross.
Thanks for your recent articles, including this one, which I really appreciated. My projection is that the panel will pass a compromise that includes zero defence cuts. It will be sheparded through with necessary arm twisting because, "it is better than across the board cuts, and 'nobody wants defence cuts'" . I am glad that there are people who make it obvious that there are those of us who do want defence cuts!
I'm excited about this Saturday. Perhaps something will change as a result. We are not the only ones who want to see the South Asia Desolator stopped.
Regards,
proclus
http://www.gnu-darwin.org/
This panel is a Politburo with the powers of the Hindu Deity Shiva, the creator and destroyer of worlds. Robert Oppenheimer, who created the atomic bomb, quoted Shiva's purpose as creator and destroyer as man taking on the mantle of God by having the qualities of Shiva the creator and destroyer of worlds.FYI, Oppenheimer regretted his creating the atom bomb and was branded a communist by Edward Teller the atomic war monger.
All three Vancouver, Washington politicians, Murray, Cantwell and Herrera support cuts over jobs and support cutting Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid right now. Obama also openly said he'd cut Social Security over military spending, even though they are from two different budget items. It's plain that our government is broken and the ONLY cure is to replace the players. That means NO VOTE FOR OBAMA or CANTWELL and no support for MURRAY in the future so she's defeated in 2014. Don't be fooled, YOUR CONGRESS PERSON is the problem, no matter Demo or Repub because they are not Democrats of Republicans, they are outright text-book Fascists. NO INCUMBENTS is the only way to go, from local to state to Federal, NO INCUMBENTS is the only solution.
Seems like Murrary's gone from Mom in Sneakers to Sleazeball in Sneakers. What a bunch of cowards, "protecting" us from those nasty bond raters. Is there not one powerful person who will call for true patriotism and stand up to the bullies, wherever they are?
Stand up to economic elite, please. Our hides have already been skinned; find your money somewhere else.
She never was "just a mom in tennis shoes" despite her using that phrase a lot. It implies she was a stay at home mom. She never was. She's always been a careerist (which I think is great, but her use of the phrase implies something else.) She was a teacher then a school board director then a state senator and finally she ran for U.S. Senate with the slogan, "I'm just a mom in tennis shoes," when she was actually a career politician.
Think how much money you could save by not trying to make futile war on an abstract noun (terror).
You could save the MIC so much money they'd go out of business.
Just a small note: the useless F-35 and also the F-22 are both grounded and have been for months.
You seem like a professional criticizer with no ideas of your own to add.
Yeah right and your comment is well worth reading?
Perfect, blatant, unimpeachable common sense. It boggles my mind living in a country where the obvious is only the perception of the "fringe" and madness rules the masses. Why should we choose bombs over seniors and the sick
The real threat to this nation is the decay and neglect within, and the ever more selfish domination of elite power and money, not the threat of Islamic masses somehow invading and ruling us.
If the military could somehow defend us from wall street, maybe I'd be more inclined to fund them
Peace
Karl Baba
"Senator Max Baucus, a Democrat from Montana, has been an even more reliable supporter of the warfare state than Murray"
Was it not Senator Max Baucus who headed the Government Panel on "Single Payer", Health Insurance for all?? I believe Code Pink was there to shout him down, since there were no Representatives for "Single Payer" on the panel...
This Baucus STOOGE needs to be put out on the street...How bout it Montana???,
A fine paper on an unbelieveably difficult and challenging problem. Are we to ask more about where and how to find the needed balance?
With the quote below:
"Fifty years ago President Eisenhower warned Americans that this would happen – that the rise of a massive arms industry, an industry that profits from war and loses money as a result of peace, threatened to “endanger our liberties [and] democratic processes,” creating an institutional incentive for ever more spending on war and empire. That's no longer a threat, these days: it's the sad reality." ---- on reflection, the whole episode is extremely touching and sorrowful.
Many are frightened and attacked in a variety of ways, which is unhelpful when topics like this call for new ideas about the way out of the present dilemma. In anycase author of the article is well commended for these last words of hers: "Politicians, being politicians, respond to pressure, not politeness." Whether or not the modern democracy can weather the storms of thoughts and actions in this direction, remains what must be responsibly and peacefully watched out for.
That we continue to define our progress in-between 'good and evil' is bringing us to a peak: a point that, to be fair with our lessons from all put together], means that we simply must be bold to rethink and re-philosophise the way(s) out. The sad thing being that we have been relatively so deeply-rooted that the results of "rethinking" the ways out, surely might take time - the result of our evolutionary political history and values. The problem of redirecting uses of our technology, culture of money-making, life-style, consumption, ego, identity, nationalism, etc., point at how interwoven the interrelated challenges of issues in the article are. Are we ready to turn our faces against the so-called "real politics" or are we only engaging in intellectual exercise on the issues?
America, like the world at large is at the cross-roads. Let us keep following and monitoring the depths of political and economic debates about the issues tied to the major problem, and see how: (i) the American voters respond; and (ii) world communities also adjust and respond. The truth is, with good and open hearts and minds, we can all work to bring about the change peacefully and that is not going to be the task of one person or a small group, and yet on the whole, the impactful voice and role of the nobel peace prize will remain well positive: demonstration of the ability to foresee - though through clouds of hash realities and yet with hope enough to spur an encouraging action!
the $ trillion figure for the Pentagon budget is actually low: a larger figure must be used because of all related costs of wars...
Also shouldn't we compensate all families who lost an innocent civilian member in our wars in those 6 countries ($3 million per death and ??? for injuries... ).
shouldn't we pay for reconstruction of an illegally attacked country (Iraq, Pakistan, Yemen, and way back - we forgot - Nicaragua and Panama...).
One expert recently claimed that a $1 TRILLION cut in military spending would NOT affect our defense capability! I wish I remembered his name but the figure was often quoted in several articles (center for tax justice?
if so knows please give us a link
Medea, the Committee of Twelve deprives the people and their Senators of equal representation (Suffrage) in the Senate, and thus violates Article V of the U.S. Constitution.
One would hope that there would be one Senator objecting to the process.
What next, a "Committee of Public Safety"?
I have supported Sen Murry since she actually wore those tennis shoes but of late I have been thinking that maybe she has gone the way of most career politicians and forgotten why we sent her to Washington in the first place. She ran on a platform of change and fighting vested interests. She has stopped being a loud voice for the people and will not even produce an opinion on current issues through her local or Washington headquarters. I don't expect her to be a Bernie Sanders but by God our Democratic Senators should be at least beating the drum givin these critical times when the very fabric of our society is threatened by the corporatists and their legislative toadies.
I just wish a true progressive like Jim McDermot would take up the challange for Senator of the Great State of Washington. I need a representitive that I can believe in.
As for the campaign contributions taken from the MIC, you gotta get your money from them that gots it. This ain't gonna change til we get public financing only of campaigns with a cap on spending and stiff penalties on those who accept bribes from lobbyists. Yes, the sky where I live is often vermillion.
well said Namora and "Stiff penalties" should mean mandatory jail time, a fine egal to 100 times the bribes, ineligibility to public office for 10 years minimum, and THIS even for $10 in bribes!
I have to take issue with the term "welfare queens" because it is sexist and a better term is WELFARE KINGS for all the corporate parasites that exist off the forced contributions, withholding taxes, by taxing labor and then returned to the WELFARE KINGS by the USG either in like kind and/or benefits such as the Pentagon protection racket scheme which is to protect the wowrldwide assets and resources of the WELFARE KINGS many of which pay little/no USG taxes or even located in the USA. The forced contribution funding for the WELFARE KINGS, to be used for unethical gangsterism, protecting those that don't pay for it compared to Al Capones ethical gangsterism of not protecting those that didn't pay for it means that Capone had superior ethical standards than the present day misgovernance of the USA.