PENTAGON BUDGET, OMNI
NEWSLETTER # 1. November 21, 2013. Compiled
by Dick Bennett for a Culture of Peace, Justice, and Ecology.
“Percentage of discretionary spending devoted to defense in
President Barack Obama’s proposed 2014 budget: 57
Percentage devoted to education: 6
Rank of the United
States , out of 29 developed countries, in
overall child well-being: 26
Rank of Greece :
25
Rank of Lithuania :
27
From Yes! (Fall
2013).
Newsletters
Index:
See: Cyber Command,
Hagel, Newsletter, Oversight, Propaganda Machine, Special Ops Command,
Suicides, Whistleblowers, Woman (mistreatment of ), and more.
Contents #1
2013 (FYI 2014)
Mismanagement: How Can Our Generals and Secretaries of War
Lose Trillions of Dollars?
Tomgram (Nick Turse), Kramer and Pemberton, Conversion:
Demilitarize the Economy
United for Peace and Justice UFPJ vs. 2014 FY
Sia, Cutting Egregious Fat Insignificant, a Non-Killing
Drone Not Needed
Naiman, Cut Pentagon Not Social Services
Randall, FCNL, Demand a Budget for Helping People, Not
Neglecting or Killing Them
Comparing Earlier
Budgets
Korb, 2006
Contact Arkansas
Congressional Delegation
Monday, Oct 21, 2013
A blow to defense planning certainty
BY WALTER PINCUS, The
Washington Post
Published: October 18, 2013 [The title in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette (10-19-13) is “No Way to Plan Defense”. –Dick]
Published: October 18, 2013 [The title in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette (10-19-13) is “No Way to Plan Defense”. –Dick]
[Pincus is all for “defense” (by which he means offense), he just wants it to be more
efficient. Quoting Jamie Morin, an
assistant secretary of the Air Force, “One of the key reasons that our Department
of Defense is the envy of the world. . .is the really robust planning,
programming, budgeting, execution process that we use.” That is, planning for growth for future
US-initiated wars requires locking in public funds for many years in advance. Another assistant secretary, Michael Lumpkin,
“for special operations and low-intensity conflict,” denounced spending cuts “as
endangering the projected slowly planned growth of Special Operations Command
from 65,000 to 71,000 personnel.”
Special OPS—rings a bell? That’s
the new Command just for secret, darkness break-and-enter, assassination teams
(just as bloody, and as despised by the victims families and friends around the
world), and it’s growing. Instead of
lamenting budget instability and cuts, the following writers urge budget
reduction of militarism and conversion of funds to citizens’ health, education,
and other needs. --Dick]
Defense budget experts are working on their own
plan for the 2015-to-2019 Future Years Defense Program (FYDP) “with absolutely
no idea what we’re going to be doing in 2014, if and when we end this shutdown
and get to start executing 2014 spending.”
That’s Jamie M. Morin, who testified last week
before the Senate Armed Services Committee as the nominee for director of Cost
Assessment and Program Evaluation. CAPE is the
Pentagon’s unit that provides independent analytic cost assessments of current
and future military programs, along with development of the FYDP.
His problems won’t go away unless Congress by some
miracle — before the new Jan. 15 deadline — comes up with a fiscal 2014
Pentagon budget that promises some stability.
Morin, who is now an assistant secretary of the Air
Force, told the senators, “One of the key reasons that our Department of
Defense is the envy of the world and our military establishment is the envy of
the world is the really robust planning, programming, budgeting, execution
process that we use.”
But, he added, “I think the current instability
really puts at risk that entire, well-articulated, effective set of
institutions that strive to squeeze that maximum amount of combat capability
out of each taxpayer dollar. It’s doing enormous and untold damage to the
institution.”
Michael Lumpkin, slated to become assistant
secretary of defense for special operations and low-intensity conflict,
described the sequester — the across-the-board cuts required in fiscal 2013
discretionary defense spending — as endangering the projected slowly planned
growth of Special Operations Command from 65,000 to 71,000 personnel. That’s
accompanied by increases in intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance
equipment and other support elements.
“Special operations cannot be mass-produced. It’s
not one of those things that you can just run it on and off, like a light
switch. It takes time, and there’s a significant process that goes to making a
special operator,” said Lumpkin, a former Navy SEAL. “I have real concerns
about the morale of both our armed forces and the federal workers, based on the
current climate.”
Jo Ann Rooney, nominated to be Navy undersecretary,
had a different issue. Asked whether the Navy would uphold its legal obligation
to meet financial audit deadlines set for 2014 and 2017, she said she couldn’t
make that determination because there was “the inability to make sure that
there is the appropriate hiring to fill those slots.” In addition, she noted,
it’s “also the uncertainty with our people in being able to allow them to sit
back and think on a time horizon that is longer term with certainty.”
A personnel specialist, Rooney said that so much
doubt among key people could lead to many decamping for private industry
because they “just can’t face that uncertainty.”
It’s not as if the Pentagon was great at handling
its budget over the past decade.
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., started the hearing off,
however, by criticizing Congress for providing “the government with precious
little certainty about future funding, which has caused untold amounts of
scrapped planning, administrative double work and waste.”
He said the sequester is creating “budgetary
instability that is causing well-performing programs to be cut, program
officials to be furloughed and readiness accounts to be plundered.”
He was just as tough on the Pentagon, referring to
“systematic departmental shortcomings which contribute to a ‘culture of
inefficiency’ that is robbing war fighters of reliable equipment and absolutely
failing taxpayers.”
No one is as good as McCain when he’s warmed up on
Pentagon spending.
“After more than a decade of profligate spending
and lax internal oversight, senior defense leaders must now impel cultural
change throughout the department regarding procurement practices, financial
improvement and business transformation,” he said last week.
He cited the cost — $12.8 billion — of constructing
the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78), and the
Littoral Combat Ships, now $448 million each, as “only the most recent examples
of programs that have been undertaken without regard for affordability or for
what our combatant commanders and service members actually need.”
In an era of declining budgets, McCain said, “We
simply cannot afford to pour treasure into programs that underperform, deliver
unreliable capability or for which we are unable to determine life-cycle
costs.” He finished by adding that “cost estimates prepared by the military
services for major weapon systems have historically proved inaccurate.”
There is plenty of blame to pass around for today’s
fiscal cliff and for yesterday’s Pentagon excesses. The real question is
whether this latest crisis has forced enough people in Congress and the
executive branch to settle down and work out their differences so defense
budget planners can get to work.
The public at large is watching.
Walter Pincus reports on intelligence, defense and
foreign policy for The Washington Post and
writes the Fine Print column.
7 disturbing ways the
Pentagon mismanages its massive budget
Then, there's this: a real
eye opener at the end of video on
"2.3 TRillion Dollars Missing from DOD Day before
9/11 2001
What's a billion or TWO among friends? (from Larry W)
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September 19, 2013
In the preface to his 1974
classic, The
Permanent War Economy, Seymour Melman decried Tomgram: Kramer and Pemberton, Downsizing the Military Mission, Upsizing the Peacetime One “Traditional economic competence of every sort is being eroded by the state capitalist directorate that elevates inefficiency to a national purpose, that disables the market system, that destroys the value of the currency, and that diminishes the decision power of all institutions other than its own. Industrial productivity, the foundation of every nation's economic growth, is being eroded by the relentlessly predatory effects of military economy.” The time couldn’t have looked riper for beating swords into plowshares. After more than 10 years, In the years since, the primary Communist behemoth on the planet, the Soviet Union, went belly up and its satellite states in Eastern Europe and In 2004, Melman died without ever seeing his dream of converting any significant part of the American war economy into a peace economy get the slightest traction. Today, however, Beating Swords Into Solar Panels Re-Purposing By Mattea Kramer and Miriam Pemberton A trillion dollars. It's a lot of money. In a year it could send 127 million college students to school, provide health insurance for 206 million people, or pay the salaries of seven million schoolteachers and seven million police officers. A trillion dollars could do a lot of good. It could transform or save a lot of lives. Now, imagine doubling the money; no, tripling it. How about quadrupling it, maybe quintupling it, or even sextupling it? Unfortunately, you really will have to imagine that, because the money to do it isn’t there. It was (or will be) spent on War, the military-industrial complex, and the national security state that go with it cost in every sense an arm and a leg. And that, in the twenty-first century, has been where so many American tax dollars have gone. Click here to read more of |
[The following appeal for protests of the 2014 war budget is
literally too late, but the information provides all we need for contacting our
representatives to protest the imbalance of expenditures. –Dick]
Stop Funding War Business as Usual! CALL-IN TODAY
202-224-3121
UFPJ
[info@unitedforpeace.org]To: James R. Bennett Wednesday, July 24, 2013 |
Voting on
2014 Defense Appropriations Bill may come as early as Tuesday afternoon
STOP FUNDING WAR BUSINESS AS USUAL! Call your Representative! Time to stop favoring the Pentagon over urgent human needs at home. Ask Them to Vote NO! on HR 2397. Call 202 224 3121 (Capitol Switchboard) and ask for your Rep.) To Find Out your Rep : http://www.contactingthecongress.org/
Background: On June 13, the
House Appropriations Committee passed H.R.
2397, the FY 2014 Department of Defense Appropriations Act approving $512.5 billion for the Pentagon base budget
(not counting the cost of military construction and nuclear weapons), and $85.8 billion for Overseas Contingency Operations,
which is largely for waging war in Afghanistan. For text:http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/113/hr2397
Despite countless floor speeches full of moral platitudes about democracy, social justice and peace and hard evidence that the US' imperial model is unsustainable, the majority in Congress continues to vote for the needs of a powerful military industry at the expense of the needs of most Americans.
It is not just militaristic Republicans who are the problems. When
the House of Representatives voted on the 2014 Defense Authorization bill
last month, the majority of Democrats voted in favor (103-90). See Roll
Callhttp://www.gop.gov/votes/113/1/244 to see how your Representative
voted. Without strong pressure from us, the results are likely to be the same
for the Defense Appropriations Bill when it comes to the floor, perhaps as
early as today .
The DoD Budget ignores the Budget Control Act’s requirement that half of the $110 billion in additional annual cuts must be shared between military and non-military programs. Instead, the Pentagon budget is 5.4 percent over this year’s spending while the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education are slashed 18.6 percent below this year’s already reduced funding. Energy, conservation, and environmental protection programs will be cut between 11 – 22 percent. These choices are neither wise nor fair. Under sequestration it's business as usual for the Pentagon and upheaval for the poor and vulnerable as more cuts to critical human need programs are imposed to protect funding for war, weapons and spying. During this fiscal year, the cuts to programs like Head Start, Meals on Wheels, student grants, affordable housing, furthe cut into vitally important services for some of our most vulnerable people- including families, children, low income mothers, students and elders. Our allies at the Coalition for Human Needs are keeping track of the impact across all 50 states here:http://www.chn.org/background/sequestration-state-fact-sheets-2013/ . Below is a recent example of how the Pentagon and it's private sector partners deal with the sequester and waste billions of taxpayer dollars: ...Northrop Grumman’s political strategy “is entirely predictable — hire the right people, target the right people, contribute to the right people, then link them together with subcontractors and go for the gold,” said Gordon Adams, who served as the senior White House budget official for national security from 1993 to 1997 … To read more: http://www.publicintegrity.org/print/12969
Defense
Contractors Are Making the Noise!
Members of Congress Need to Hear From Us ! Call 202 224 3121 (Capitol Switchboard) and ask for your Representative Tell them to Vote NO on another $598 bill Pentagon Spending Bill Keep the Dream of justice and peace alive, call your Rep and please forward this email widely l… |
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Dear Dick,
Tell President Obama and Congress: Don't cut Social Security to
Feed Lockheed by Naiman, JustForeignPolicy, October 14, 2013
Sign/Share the Petition at MoveOn
Members of Congress - including leading Democrats - are talking
about a budget deal that would cut Social Security and Medicare benefits while
protecting the bloated Pentagon budget from planned cuts. [1]
Join us in telling President Obama and Members of Congress to reject any budget deal that cuts Social Security or Medicare benefits to protect the Pentagon budget:
http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/dont-cut-social-security-20?source=c.url&r_by=1135580
Sen. Dick Durbin, the second most powerful Democrat in the Senate, recently told Fox News Sunday that he would support cuts to Social Security and Medicare benefits as part of a "grand bargain" with Republicans. [2] On CBS's Face the Nation, Sen. Mark Warner - one of the Democrats picked to negotiate with Paul Ryan on the budget - said: "We all know at the end of the day...Democrats are going to have to give on entitlement reform." [3]
The "grand bargain" these Democrats are talking about would cut Social Security and Medicare benefits to pay for bloated Pentagon spending, like Lockheed Martin's boondoggle $1.5 trillion F-35 warplane. [4] $1.5 trillion represents more money than the entire savings over the next ten years from all current plans to cut federal discretionary spending - both Pentagon spending and domestic spending. And that's just one unneeded weapons system.
Over the last year, the Washington Post [5] and other media have reported on the extraordinary perks that the Pentagon makes available to senior military commanders at taxpayer expense. These include paid military personnel and DOD civilians to cut grass, chauffeur, schedule events, and to perform other personal aide duties. They also include extraordinarily lavish housing and entitlement to tender and/or accept offers for post-retirement employment with Pentagon contractors and lobbying and investment firms, even if those firms handle the very same issues that the senior officer oversaw at taxpayers' expense. Asking citizens to watch their federally funded benefits shrink so we can pay for these personal perks for generals and admirals is not only offensive but also drives a deeper wedge between civilian society and uniformed military leadership.
Tell Congress and the President not to cut our earned Social Security and Medicare benefits in order to protect the obscene profits of Lockheed Martin and the lavish lifestyles of the pampered generals.
http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/dont-cut-social-security-20?source=c.url&r_by=1135580
Thanks for all you do to makeU.S.
Robert Naiman
Just Foreign Policy
Help support our work—make a $3 tax-deductible donation! Your financial support helps us create opportunities for Americans to agitate for a more just foreign policy.
http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/donate
References:
1. "Cut Pentagon waste, not Social Security," William Hartung, The Hill, 10/23/13, http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/economy-a-budget/329963-cut-pentagon-waste-not-social-security
2. "Why Democrats Might Cave On Social Security Cuts," Zach Carter, Huffington Post, 10/20/2013,
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/20/democrats-social-security-cuts_n_4132087.html
3. "Sens. Graham, Warner describe possible components of big budget deal," Rebecca Kaplan, October 20, 2013,
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-3460_162-57608347/sens-graham-warner-describe-possible-components-of-big-budget-deal/
4. "Sequester could ax F-35 jets," Jeremy Herb, The Hill, 10/23/13, http://thehill.com/blogs/defcon-hill/procurement/330269-at-least-six-f-35-fighters-threatened-by-sequester-in-2014
5."Petraeus scandal puts four-star general lifestyle under scrutiny," Rajiv Chandrasekaran and Greg Jaffe, Washington Post, November 17, 2012, http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2012-11-17/world/35505221_1_robert-m-gates-commanders-joint-chiefs
Join us in telling President Obama and Members of Congress to reject any budget deal that cuts Social Security or Medicare benefits to protect the Pentagon budget:
http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/dont-cut-social-security-20?source=c.url&r_by=1135580
Sen. Dick Durbin, the second most powerful Democrat in the Senate, recently told Fox News Sunday that he would support cuts to Social Security and Medicare benefits as part of a "grand bargain" with Republicans. [2] On CBS's Face the Nation, Sen. Mark Warner - one of the Democrats picked to negotiate with Paul Ryan on the budget - said: "We all know at the end of the day...Democrats are going to have to give on entitlement reform." [3]
The "grand bargain" these Democrats are talking about would cut Social Security and Medicare benefits to pay for bloated Pentagon spending, like Lockheed Martin's boondoggle $1.5 trillion F-35 warplane. [4] $1.5 trillion represents more money than the entire savings over the next ten years from all current plans to cut federal discretionary spending - both Pentagon spending and domestic spending. And that's just one unneeded weapons system.
Over the last year, the Washington Post [5] and other media have reported on the extraordinary perks that the Pentagon makes available to senior military commanders at taxpayer expense. These include paid military personnel and DOD civilians to cut grass, chauffeur, schedule events, and to perform other personal aide duties. They also include extraordinarily lavish housing and entitlement to tender and/or accept offers for post-retirement employment with Pentagon contractors and lobbying and investment firms, even if those firms handle the very same issues that the senior officer oversaw at taxpayers' expense. Asking citizens to watch their federally funded benefits shrink so we can pay for these personal perks for generals and admirals is not only offensive but also drives a deeper wedge between civilian society and uniformed military leadership.
Tell Congress and the President not to cut our earned Social Security and Medicare benefits in order to protect the obscene profits of Lockheed Martin and the lavish lifestyles of the pampered generals.
http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/dont-cut-social-security-20?source=c.url&r_by=1135580
Thanks for all you do to make
Robert Naiman
Just Foreign Policy
Help support our work—make a $3 tax-deductible donation! Your financial support helps us create opportunities for Americans to agitate for a more just foreign policy.
http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/donate
References:
1. "Cut Pentagon waste, not Social Security," William Hartung, The Hill, 10/23/13, http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/economy-a-budget/329963-cut-pentagon-waste-not-social-security
2. "Why Democrats Might Cave On Social Security Cuts," Zach Carter, Huffington Post, 10/20/2013,
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/20/democrats-social-security-cuts_n_4132087.html
3. "Sens. Graham, Warner describe possible components of big budget deal," Rebecca Kaplan, October 20, 2013,
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-3460_162-57608347/sens-graham-warner-describe-possible-components-of-big-budget-deal/
4. "Sequester could ax F-35 jets," Jeremy Herb, The Hill, 10/23/13, http://thehill.com/blogs/defcon-hill/procurement/330269-at-least-six-f-35-fighters-threatened-by-sequester-in-2014
5."Petraeus scandal puts four-star general lifestyle under scrutiny," Rajiv Chandrasekaran and Greg Jaffe, Washington Post, November 17, 2012, http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2012-11-17/world/35505221_1_robert-m-gates-commanders-joint-chiefs
DEMAND A BUDGET THAT PROVIDES FOR PUBLIC NEEDS AND CUTS THE WARS
BUDGET. From FCNL, Nov. 17, 2013.
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Dear Dick Bennett,
 Three days ago, I joined hundreds of Quakers and other
activists on Capitol Hill. In the midst of negotiations that could shape
public spending for the next decade, we lobbied in 140 congressional offices
for a federal budget that meets the needs of our communities and that assures
the Pentagon budget is cut. Will you join our efforts by making a donation of $50,
$100, $200 or more?
This lobbying comes at a critical time. Military
contractors are making their biggest effort yet to stop Pentagon spending
cuts. Over and over again last week, staff and members of Congress thanked
our advocates and told them that community voices need to stay loud and
strong.
You rely on FCNL for this kind of focused, strategic
advocacy—and right now it’s more important than ever. Can you make a donation today to
keep this lobbying going in Washington and in your communities?
Our lobbying can't end here. With senators preparing to
cast votes that could roll back Pentagon spending cuts, our lobbying must
continue and expand in the weeks ahead. It's the right time, and we need to
keep our lobbyists in the right place. Will you make a donation of $50, $100, $200 or more
today to keep our lobbying strong?
FCNL has a critically important role to play. The
partnerships we forge between our network across the country and our
lobbyists in
Sincerely,
Diane RandallExecutive Secretary, FCNL |
COMPARING EARLIER BUDGETS
Saving $60 Billion: Lawrence Lawrence
Lawrence Korb served
as U.S. Assistant Secretary of Defense (Manpower, Reserve Affairs, Installations
and Logistics) from 1981 through 1985. In that position, he administered about
70 percent of the U.S. Washington , D.C. U.S. America
Multinational Monitor: How much is the United States now spending on
defense?
If you weigh in the costs of fighting
the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan , it
is at least another $100 billion, so you're talking about $575 billion a year.
MM: How does this defense budget compare with previous
administrations?
Korb: If you take a look at the baseline budget exclusive of
fighting the wars in Iraq
and Afghanistan ,
it is about $100 billion higher than the budget they inherited from President
Clinton.
If you count the war expenditures,
defense expenditures are above the height of the Reagan build-up, even if you
control for inflation; and they're significantly higher than the budgets of the
first Bush administration, when the Cold War ended and they began to cut
military expenditures.
MM: You have pointed out that when he was Secretary of Defense
in the first Bush administration, Dick Cheney criticized some programs he now
supports.
Korb: When the first President Bush came into office - this is
even before the end of the Cold War 1989 - he ordered Dick Cheney, then the
Secretary of Defense, to cut $30 billion from the existing defense budget. He
was concerned about the deficit and also felt that, given the Reagan build-up,
the military was in pretty good shape. Cheney tried to cancel a number of
weapon systems including the V-22 - which according to press reports in private
he called a turkey - but he was overridden by the Congress.
President Clinton supported the
weapons system, as did Dick Cheney when he was running for Vice President.
MM: How does U.S.
military spending compare to the rest of the world?
Korb: If you look at our defense budget and you look at all the
countries in the world with any meaningful military, it is more than the rest
of the world combined.
MM: Is there any rationale for why the United States
should be responsible for half of the world's total military expenditures?
Korb: I think if you take a look at the programs you're spending
on, no. There are a significant number of programs that don't contribute to
dealing with real threats to national security. They basically were built to
deal with threats from a bygone era and somehow the bureaucratic and political
momentum keeps them going.
You have the F/A-22 fighter jet, for
example, which costs over $300 million per plane. It was built to deal with the
next generation of Soviet MIGs, and of course there is no next generation of
Soviet MIGs. You have the DD(X) Destroyer, which is designed to wage open ocean
warfare, but there is no other blue water navy in the world that you would have
to deal with.
MM: You have proposed saving $60 billion a year in defense
spending. How can that be done?
Korb: The first thing is to take a look at our nuclear weapons.
We have about 6,000 operational nuclear weapons and another 5,000 or 6,000 in
reserve. We don't need that many. Even the former head of the strategic command
General Eugene Habiger said you need no more than 1,000. If you got rid of the other
9,000 weapons, you could save a significant amount of money.
Then there is the national missile
defense system, which we're deploying even though it doesn't work, and you
could cut that back to a research program.
You could get rid of your Cold War era
weapons, like the F/A-22, the DD(X) Destroyer, and weapons that are simply not
performing, like the V-22 Osprey, with a record replete with accidents and
exponentially growing costs.
And you could get rid of the earmarks
in the defense budget.
If you did all those, you could
easily save $60 billion.
MM: One other category of concern that you have identified is
space-based weapons.
Korb: The problem with space-based weapons is the difference
between what we call militarization of space and weaponization of space.
Militarization means you use space for your military operations, like GPS for
example, or satellite imagery. Weaponization means that you would actually
launch attacks from space. The administration is moving in that direction. Not
only would it be expensive - it would cost over 100 times as much to fire
weapons from space as it does, for example, firing from a ship - you would also
create an arms race in space, which would not help anybody. Right now, we have
the best of all possible worlds because we can use space and nobody threatens
our use of it.
MM: Do you think there could be cuts beyond the $60 billion
that you're talking about that would be reasonable?
Korb: You could cut those weapons without impacting national
security. Those are probably the maximum cuts that I see right now.
MM: You served as an Assistant Secretary of Defense in the
Reagan administration and now there is a Republican administration. Have you
changed, or have Republicans changed?
Korb: I think the big change is that the Republicans have gotten
away from Eisenhower's values. I consider myself an Eisenhower or Rockefeller
Republican. Right now, the GOP has moved away from Ike's principles. In
addition to spending on weapons that you don't need, the Bush administration is
not funding government activities. Thus, we're ending up with a very large
national debt.
MM: Why do these Cold War-era programs continue?
Korb: They continue for many reasons, some of them having to do
with what President Eisenhower called the military-industrial complex. You have
a situation where it becomes hard to cancel them because of concern from
Congress about resulting unemployment. Additionally, the services have a view
of what they need - and you have an exaggeration of the threat; for example, people
think China is going to be
another Soviet Union . So it is a whole
combination. Eisenhower called it the military-industrial complex, others call
it the military-industrial-Congressional complex.
MM: Is the military industry's influence in Congress greater
than it was 10, 20 or 30 years ago?
Korb: No, I think it has always been there, but it has been
revived. Now that we're in this so-called global war on terror, politicians are
afraid to vote against weapons programs. I think that makes the influence of the
complex even greater. By contrast, in the 1990s, people were not as worried
[about external threats] so they didn't pay as much attention to the defense
industry.
MM: Has consolidation in the industry affected the companies'
influence one way or the other?
Korb: Consolidation means that there is less competition and it
means that each of the companies is more powerful, because they have facilities
all over the country.
A company like Lockheed has
facilities in nearly every state. When there is a weapons program that impacts
Lockheed, they can bring influence in many more places than they could when
there were separate Lockheed and Martin and General Dynamics [competitors] in
the aircraft business.
MM: Is the trend toward privatization and contracting out of
Defense Department functions affecting either the size of the budget or the
influence of these lobbies?
Korb: I think that the problem with privatization, particularly
when you use it in a war zone, is that you are getting people to perform
military functions and the rules governing them are not clear.
MM: What do you see as generating the political momentum to
move to the kind of cuts you are talking about?
Korb: It will be very difficult in a war-time situation. I think
the only thing that might motivate cuts is that we have this huge and growing
budget deficit and that in order to deal with the deficit, people are talking
about cutting some very important social programs, like Medicaid, for example.
MM: You have issued a report, and the Congressional Progressive
Caucus has proposed a bill that is based on your recommended cuts. Why is it
that only the progressive end of the Democratic Party is willing to support
what seem to be such commonsense proposals?
Korb: I don't know. That's not my area. I just tell Members of
Congress what I believe should or should not be in the budget. I don't lobby.
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Weapons System
|
Bush Administration 2007 fiscal year budgetary
request (in $ billions)
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Korb's proposed "realistic" budgetary
expenditure (in $ billions)
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Savings in fiscal year 2007 (in $ billions
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|
BMD
|
11.3
|
3
|
8.3
|
|
F/A-22
|
2.8
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1
|
1.8
|
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SSN-774
|
2.6
|
0.3
|
2.3
|
|
DD(X)
|
3.4
|
0
|
3.4
|
|
V-22
|
2.3
|
0.2
|
2.1
|
|
C-130(J)
|
1.6
|
0
|
1.6
|
|
F-35
|
5.3
|
2
|
3.3
|
|
Space Weapons
|
5
|
0
|
5
|
|
FCS
|
3.7
|
1
|
2.7
|
|
R&D
|
73
|
65
|
8
|
|
Total
|
111
|
|
36.5
|
Source: "The Korb Report - A Realistic Defense for
Arkansas
|
SENATORS
Sen. John
Boozman
Republican, first term 320 Hart Senate Office Building Washington, D.C. 20510 Phone: (202) 224-4843 Fax: (202) 228-1371 Arkansas offices: FORT SMITH: (479) 573-0189 JONESBORO: (870) 268-6925 LITTLE ROCK: (501) 372-7153 LOWELL: (479) 725-0400 MOUNTAIN HOME: (870) 424-0129 STUTTGART: (870) 672-6941 EL DORADO: (870) 863-4641 Website: www.boozman.senate.gov
Sen. Mark
Pryor
Democrat, second term 255 Dirksen Office Building Constitution Avenue and First Street NE Washington, D.C. 20510 Phone: (202) 224-2353 Fax: (202) 228-0908 Little Rock office: (501) 324-6336 Website: www.pryor.senate.gov |
REPRESENTATIVES
Rep. Rick
Crawford
1ST DISTRICT Republican, second term 1771 Independence Avenues SE Washington, D.C. 20515 Phone: (202) 225-4076 Fax: (202) 225-5602 CABOT: (501) 843-3043 MOUNTAIN HOME: (870) 424-2075 Website: www.crawford.house.gov
Rep. Tim
Griffin
2ND DISTRICT Republican, second term 1232 Independence Avenues SE Washington, D.C. 20515 Phone: (202) 225-2506 Fax: (202) 225-5903 LITTLE ROCK: (501) 324-5491 Website: www.griffin.house.gov
Rep. Steve
Womack
3RD DISTRICT Republican, second term 1119 Longworth Office Building New Jersey and Independence Avenues SE Washington 20515 Phone: (202) 225-4301 Fax: (202) 225-5713 Arkansas offices: ROGERS: (479) 464-0446 HARRISON: (870) 741-7741 FORT SMITH: (479) 424-1146 Website: www.womack.house.gov
Rep. Tom
Cotton
4TH DISTRICT Republican, first term 415 Phone: (202) 225-43772 HOT SPRINGS: (501) 520-5892 PINE BLUFF: (870) 536-3376 Website: www.cotton.house.gov |
END PENTAGON BUDGET NEWSLETTER #1
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