Shameful excesses haunt defense spending
As can be expected, it's a lie.
The United States spent $680 billion on defense in 2010, which accounts for 43 percent of total global military expenditure in that same year. The next highest spender, China, had expenditures of $119 billion, just over 7 percent of the global share. We do get the most powerful military in the world with that money, but we could do so at a fraction of the current price.
Three South Carolina military bases are currently awaiting delivery of the F-35 Lightning II, the next evolution in stealth fighter technology. The jet is the most expensive piece of military hardware ever to be designed, and the program is riddled with inefficiency and graft. Originally started in 2001, the F-35 was estimated to cost an average of $50 million per plane. Since then, the price has more than doubled, with some estimates now costing more than $100 million per unit.
This is a prime example of what's wrong with our military these days. Technology contracts are priced using a "could cost" formula, which takes the cost for the previous generation of technology, adjusts for inflation, tacks on some extra money for increased sophistication and then adds on some more just in case.
Defense spending has neglected our troops time and again. Ground forces in Iraq and Afghanistan were left without protection; some soldiers were lucky enough to have families back home who could pay for or raise the money to send them body armor. Hundreds of soldiers who might have otherwise survived combat wounds are dead because the military gave money to the industrial complex instead. Front-line soldiers went days without food, water, or ammunition because the Bush administration handed control of supply lines to contractors instead of maintaining the world's best combat supply system.
The Republicans use the military as a campaign tool to garner votes, while shamefully neglecting the soldiers who put their lives on the line. An estimated 25,000 military families are eligible for food stamp programs. The average pay for a civilian defense contractor was around $74,000 in 2009, about $20,000 more than a soldier doing the same basic job. Meanwhile, an estimated 38 percent of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans are unemployed here at home, abandoned by capitalist elites that extracted their pound of flesh and no longer have use for the soldiers.
We do need to support our troops. We need to do it by slashing the defense budget, spending the remainder efficiently and for the right reasons and staying out of wars we have no business being in. The money we save can instead go toward fixing our country and making it a place worthy of the soldiers who put themselves on the line for us all.
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