Friends,
Of course, this is not a surprise. We the People lost badly to the weapons contractors who control the legislature. My voice is immaterial, but our legislators sure listen to the weapons contractors. In other words, we live in an Empire.
Only two House members from Maryland voted against the Pentagon budget, Andy Harris and Jaymie Raskin. In a vote to reduce the Pentagon budget by Mark Pocan, three House members from Maryland voted in favor – Kweisi Mfume, Jaymie Raskin and my legislator, John Sarbanes. Finally, in an amendment by Barbara Lee for a smaller reduction in military spending, Steny Hoyer, Mfume, Raskin, Dutch Ruppersberger and Sarbanes voted in favor. Kagiso, Max
This picture
taken on December 26, 2011 shows the Pentagon building in Washington, D.C.
(Photo: Staff/AFP via Getty Images)
Dems Who Opposed
Pentagon Cuts Received Nearly 4x More Donations From Weapons Makers
The latest passage of the NDAA "is particularly
strong evidence that Pentagon contractors' interests easily take precedence
over national security and the public interest for too many members of
Congress," said one critic.
September
24, 2021
In a bipartisan 316-113 vote on Thursday night, the U.S. House authorized a $778 billion military budget for fiscal year 2022. Every Republican voted against two amendments to reduce Pentagon spending, but Democrats were split, and a new analysis reveals that lawmakers who rejected the proposed cuts received far more campaign cash from the weapons industry than those who supported the cuts.
"Our biggest problems can't be solved by more
ships, planes, or missiles."
—Lindsay Koshgarian, IPS
One amendment to the National
Defense [sic] Authorization Act (NDAA), introduced by Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.),
would have slashed the overall spending authorization level by 10%, exempting
the paychecks and health benefits of military personnel and the Defense [sic]
Department's federal civilian workforce.
The measure failed by a tally of
86-332. According to an analysis of
OpenSecrets data by the Security Policy Reform Institute (SPRI) and Sludge,
the Democrats who voted against the 10% Pentagon budget cut have taken, on
average, 3.7 times more campaign money from arms manufacturers since January
2019 than the Democrats who voted for it.
Sludge's Donald Shaw and
SPRI's Stephen Semler wrote Friday that "the average
amount of defense cash received by Democrats who opposed the amendment was
$60,680, while the Democrats who supported it received an average of
$16,497" in contributions from the PACs of Defense Department contractors
"as well as donations larger than $250 from those companies'
employees."
"The vote was a step backwards
for House progressives," noted Shaw and Semler, who added that:
Last year, an
identical amendment was put forward and it received 93 votes in favor, seven
more than it received yesterday. Nine Democrats switched from supporting the
10% reduction last year to opposing it this year: Emanuel Cleaver (Mo.), Dwight
Evans (Pa.), Al Green (Texas), Bill Keating (Mass.), Robin Kelly (Ill.),
Stephen Lynch (Mass.), Richard Neal (Mass.), Brad Sherman (Calif.), and Bennie
Thompson (Miss.).
Earlier this month, the House Armed
Services Committee voted in favor of a
Republican-sponsored amendment to add $23.9 billion on top of President
Joe Biden's proposed $753 billion military budget for
fiscal year 2022—already up from the $740 billion
approved for the previous fiscal year under the Trump administration.
A second NDAA amendment, led by
Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), would have restored military spending to the level
requested by the president. That proposal for a modest 3% cut to the NDAA's
top-line figure garnered the support of a majority of—but not all—House
Democrats and was shot down in a 142-286 vote.
Sludge reported
that "the 77 Democrats who opposed the 3% cut have received, on average,
$52,211 from the defense sector since January 2019, and the 142 Democrats who
supported it have received an average of $35,898."
Lindsay Koshgarian, program
director of the National Priorities Project at the Institute for Policy Studies
(IPS), told Common Dreams on Friday that "the passage of
the $23.9 billion increase in the House is particularly strong evidence that
Pentagon contractors' interests easily take precedence over national security
and the public interest for too many members of Congress."
As she spoke in support of Pocan's amendment
on Wednesday, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) pushed back against the
narrative that cutting Pentagon spending would make Americans less safe,
emphasizing how easy it would be to find the funds.
"There is no reason for us to be increasing our
military spending and our defense budget when we are not funding childcare,
healthcare, [and] housing priorities."
—Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.)
"The Pentagon could save
almost $58 billion by eliminating obsolete weapons, weapons like Cold War-era
bombers and missiles designed and built in the last century that are completely
unsuitable for this one," said Ocasio-Cortez.
"We could find another $18
billion by simply preventing the end-of-year spending sprees that lead to
contract money being shoveled out the door every September," she added,
echoing Sen. Bernie Sanders' (I-Vt.) observation earlier this week that
the Pentagon—which has never passed an audit—is "inherently
susceptible to fraud."
Ocasio-Cortez also stressed that
people in the U.S.—which spends more on its military than the next 10 countries combined and is
poised to increase funding even further despite the recent withdrawal of troops
from Afghanistan—would be better served if the federal government invested more
in meeting their needs.
"Each September, as offices at
the Pentagon go on last-minute spending sprees to justify next year's budget
increases, we have increased our military spending year after year, senselessly
and needlessly," she said. "And now, again, during a time when we
have ended an almost two-decade war, there is no reason for us to be increasing
our military spending and our defense [sic] budget when we are not funding
childcare, healthcare, housing priorities, and the climate crisis here at
home."
In a statement released in the wake
of the House's defeat of the proposed Pentagon budget cuts and its approval of
the $778 billion NDAA, Koshgarian doubled down on the points made by
Ocasio-Cortez.
"Pentagon spending has enabled
disastrous wars and windfalls for military contractors, alongside widespread
neglect of progress and investment here at home," said Koshgarian.
"With a pandemic that has
taken the lives of more than one in 500 Americans, and with
nearly one in three of us having lived
through a climate-related weather disaster this summer alone," she added,
"it's dangerously out of touch to continue funding the Pentagon at current
levels. Our biggest problems can't be solved by more ships, planes, or
missiles."
Sludge noted that
"in terms of per-year expenditures, the amount authorized by this bill is
well over twice as large as the $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill currently
being developed by congressional Democrats."
In contrast to the federal
government's plan to spend over two times more on war than on eradicating
poverty and addressing the climate emergency, the U.S. public has shown that
it supports the Build Back Better Act.
Moreover, a majority of voters want to reallocate 10% of the military budget to
meet human needs, a Data for Progress survey found last year.
The House passage of the NDAA came
just over a week after researchers at Brown University's Costs of War
project estimated that as much as half of the
$14 trillion that the Pentagon has spent since the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan
two decades ago has gone to private military contractors. IPS' Koshgarian and SPRI's Semler, meanwhile, have both said that
corporations gobbled up more than half.
"Since fiscal year 2001,
military contractors have received over 54% of
Pentagon spending, totaling about $8 trillion," Sludge noted.
"Over $2.2 trillion of that went to the five largest weapons firms:
Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, General Dynamics, Boeing, and Northrop Grumman.
These five firms comprise about 40% of military industry cash given to federal
candidates."
Our
work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish
and share widely.
Donations can be sent
to Max Obuszewski, Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 431 Notre Dame Lane, Apt. 206,
Baltimore, MD 21212. Ph: 410-323-1607; Email: mobuszewski2001 [at]
comcast.net. Go to http://baltimorenonviolencecenter.blogspot.com/
"The master class
has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles.
The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject
class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their
lives." Eugene Victor Debs
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