#4 The majority of the Pentagon budget goes to contractors.While Pentagon budget boosters always argue that higher military spending is good for the troops, analyst Stephen Semler has determined that more than half of the department’s budget goes to contractors. And at the same time these firms are reaping hundreds of billions of dollars of our taxes each year, there are military families who need food stamps to make ends meet, and sharp cuts in veterans benefits in the offing based on budget proposals for this year and next.
Meanwhile, the arms makers are producing dysfunctional weapons systems that don’t work as advertised, cost billions more than originally projected, and spend more time in the hangar than being ready to use. To add insult to injury, much of the new funding they have received in recent years has gone to $20 million CEO salaries, or billions in spending to bid up their own stock prices – none of this spending does anything to defend us, but it does enrich the weapons makers, their executives, and their shareholders.
Really taking care of the troops would require spending more to take care of them by providing affordable housing and health care; better, more realistic training before sending them into combat; weapons that work as advertised and don’t spend half the time being repaired instead of being ready for combat; and a more realistic strategy that doesn’t put them in impossible situations and unwinnable wars.
And it would mean spending the $45 million-plus allocated for a military parade into directly investing in the needs of our veterans, and telling and honoring their stories rather than putting the focus on ostentatious displays of weaponry.
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