Sorry folks, this is not a post about a great new summer movie!
Many people have heard of the military-industrial complex which President Eisenhower warned against. In reality, this nexus includes Congress, where Representatives and Senators whose districts include military contractors and suppliers staff the relevant committees and work to protect these interests.
These relationships are well-known and understood, though rarely critically examined. Over time, military suppliers such as Lockheed Martin have become adept at dividing their production throughout many districts and states to help ensure support for their projects. Production of the F-22 raptor, for example, "relies on parts contributed by some 1,000 suppliers spread across 44 states."
Even more disturbingly, the money for these aircraft would be provided by reducing the funds allocated to clean up nuclear waste sites.
The air force already has more than 180 F-22s and more are not needed. Indeed, as Taxpayers for Common Sense argues, "at more than $350 million per plane including development costs, the F-22 is currently the most expensive fighter jet ever produced, but it has never been deployed in conflict." Designed in the 1980s to counter next-generation Soviet fighters that were never created, the F-22 is not useful for counterinsurgency and counterterrorism missions such as those in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The decision to dole out more funds for the F-22 will make us less safe as our nuclear waste sites threaten the health of nearby communities.
The main justification of the F-22's supporters is in the jobs saved by continuing the program. Posters touting "F-22 jobs" have plastered D.C.'s subway system throughout this year. However, many of the workers involved in F-22 production are highly skilled and in-demand workers, and many F-22 plants will be involved in the production of the next generation F-35 (whose production is being increased due to its usefulness in our current wars).
Moreover, as a 2007 study showed, military spending is poor means of creating jobs compared to other types of spending, such as education, health care, or mass transit. Ironically, as Representative Barney Frank noted,
Many people have heard of the military-industrial complex which President Eisenhower warned against. In reality, this nexus includes Congress, where Representatives and Senators whose districts include military contractors and suppliers staff the relevant committees and work to protect these interests.
These relationships are well-known and understood, though rarely critically examined. Over time, military suppliers such as Lockheed Martin have become adept at dividing their production throughout many districts and states to help ensure support for their projects. Production of the F-22 raptor, for example, "relies on parts contributed by some 1,000 suppliers spread across 44 states."
In recent weeks, the perennially frustrating politics of military procurement took a turn for the absurd, and a Congressional committee actually voted against the wishes of the military itself in order to continue an unnecessary program.
After more than sixteen hours of wrangling on the defense budget, the House Armed Services Committee voted 31-30 at 2:30 am June 17th to order twelve additional F-22 planes. This decision overrules the request of Defense Secretary Robert Gates and the Air Force itself that the F-22 program end, instead lining up an order for 12 more planes that begins with a $369 million down payment but would ultimately entail nearly $3 billion in useless spending.Even more disturbingly, the money for these aircraft would be provided by reducing the funds allocated to clean up nuclear waste sites.
The air force already has more than 180 F-22s and more are not needed. Indeed, as Taxpayers for Common Sense argues, "at more than $350 million per plane including development costs, the F-22 is currently the most expensive fighter jet ever produced, but it has never been deployed in conflict." Designed in the 1980s to counter next-generation Soviet fighters that were never created, the F-22 is not useful for counterinsurgency and counterterrorism missions such as those in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The decision to dole out more funds for the F-22 will make us less safe as our nuclear waste sites threaten the health of nearby communities.
The main justification of the F-22's supporters is in the jobs saved by continuing the program. Posters touting "F-22 jobs" have plastered D.C.'s subway system throughout this year. However, many of the workers involved in F-22 production are highly skilled and in-demand workers, and many F-22 plants will be involved in the production of the next generation F-35 (whose production is being increased due to its usefulness in our current wars).
Moreover, as a 2007 study showed, military spending is poor means of creating jobs compared to other types of spending, such as education, health care, or mass transit. Ironically, as Representative Barney Frank noted,
these arguments [in favor of continuing the F-22 in order to save jobs] will come from the very people who denied that the economic recovery plan created any jobs. We have a very odd economic philosophy in Washington: It's called weaponized Keynesianism. It is the view that the government does not create jobs when it funds the building of bridges or important research or retrains workers, but when it builds airplanes that are never going to be used in combat, that is of course economic salvation.
Representative Frank's attempt to put forward an amendment stripping the F-22 funds was not allowed by the Rules Committee, and on June 25th the Senate Armed Services Committee voted 13-11, over the objections of committee chairman Carl Levin and ranking member John McCain, to fund more F-22s. This mark-up went beyond the House committee's $369 million, plunking down $1.75 billion for seven more aircraft.
The expression "non-defense discretionary spending" is all-too-common in discussion of the budget and/or budget deficit. Defense spending is real spending, and every dollar we waste on boondoggles such as the F-22 is a dollar we cannot spend on other priorities such as actually useful military needs, life-saving stem cell research, global poverty reduction, or the nuclear waste clean-up efforts whose funding was stripped away by these votes.
Please write your Senator today and help stop the F-22 .
h/t to WAND for the Zombie motif
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