PENTAGON BUDGET NEWSLETTER #1

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

http://www.omnicenter.org/newsletter-archive/

Index:

http://www.omnicenter.org/omni-newsletter-general-index/

See:  Cyber Command, Hagel, Newsletter, Oversight, Propaganda Machine, Special Ops Command, Suicides, Whistleblowers, Woman (mistreatment of ), and more.

Contents #1

2013 (FYI 2014)

Pincus, Washington Post Editorial, No Way to Plan Offense [proper title for the Dept. of War –D]

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]

[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]

WASHINGTON — The last-minute plan to avoid default and reopen the government will prolong bringing sanity to defense spending.

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 http://www.salon.com/2013/11/20/7_disturbing_ways_the_pentagon_mismanages_its_massive_budget_partner/ Then, there's this: a real eye opener at the end of video on U.S. nuclear capacity "2.3 TRillion Dollars Missing from DOD Day before 9/11 2001 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HsggT9hD0Q8 What's a billion or TWO among friends?  (from Larry W)

September 19, 2013 Tomgram: Kramer and Pemberton, Downsizing the Military Mission, Upsizing the Peacetime One In the preface to his 1974 classic, The Permanent War Economy, Seymour Melman decried America’s choice of guns over butter.  He wrote:  “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, U.S. combat in Vietnam had ended and President Nixon had recently begun normalizing relations with China, that Communist behemoth.  And yet, in 1986, more than a decade later, Melman surveyed the governmental landscape and saw the same forces at play in the same ways.  By then, however, deindustrialization had obliterated whole American industries -- especially in what came to be called the Rust Belt -- that had once produced durable goods and offered well-paying jobs that had once been the pride of the planet.  “Instead of enjoying guns and butter, we are suffering a national blight of street begging, homelessness, and hunger, unseen since the Great Depression,” he wrote then.  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 Central Asia spun out of its orbit.  Still, even with no real enemies on the horizon, talk of a “peace dividend” in Washington came and went in the blink of an eye.  A smoldering war with Iraq, combat in the former Yugoslavia, an abortive intervention in Somalia, and attacks in Sudan and Afghanistan followed.  Not long after, the permanent war economy, still thriving, found itself profitably joined to the idea of permanent war, aka the Global War on Terror.  A decade of disaster followed, in which successful invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan devolved into ruinous, wheel-spinning occupations, and interventions in Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen, Libya, and elsewhere produced at best dubious, at worst disastrous, results.  Meanwhile, the military-industrial complex and the national security state continued to engorge themselves on taxpayer dollars.  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, Washington has recently quit one major war and is winding down another.  For the first time in memory, a bipartisan coalition in Congress has also pushed back against a presidential rush to war.  In addition, and to the amazement of Washington watchers of every stripe, a bipartisan agreement in Congress will, albeit modestly, ratchet down runaway Pentagon spending.  Were Melman still alive, he would no doubt be writing with increased vigor about converting the military economy to a civilian one.  In his stead, TomDispatch regular Mattea Kramer of the National Priorities Project and Miriam Pemberton of the Institute for Policy Studies pick up the banner and suggest how America’s overabundance of swords might, in the foreseeable future, be beaten into wind turbines. Nick Turse Beating Swords Into Solar Panels  Re-Purposing America's War Machine  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 Washington’s disastrous post-9/11 warsin Iraq and Afghanistan. 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…

United for Peace & Justice Click Here to Donate! Donations to United for Peace and Justice are tax exempt to the extent permitted by law. The Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR) is UFPJ's 501(c)3 fiscal sponsor.  If you would like to make a donation by check, please make it payable to "FOR" and write "UFPJ" in the memo line.  Mail to: P.O. Box 607, Times Square Station, New York, NY 10108.

The Huge Drone that Could not Be Grounded

[US militarism’s fat budget and fake budget cut.  –Dick]  Richard H.P. Sia, News Report, NationofChange, July 16, 2013: With large budget cuts looming in the next decade, top Air Force officials knew last year they needed to halt spending on some large and expensive programs. So they looked for a candidate that was underperforming, had busted its budget, and wasn’t vital to immediate combat needs. They soon settled on the production line for a $223 million aircraft with the wingspan of a tanker but no pilot in the cockpit, built to fly over vast terrain for a little more than a day while sending imagery and other data back to military commanders on the ground. READ  |  DISCUSS  |  SHARE

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 make U.S. foreign policy accountable to the 99%,

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.

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 Washington bring voices to Capitol Hill that might otherwise not be heard. Thank you for considering a contribution today. Sincerely,  Diane Randall Executive Secretary, FCNL

 

COMPARING EARLIER BUDGETS

 

Saving $60 Billion: Lawrence Korb's Common Sense Defense Budget.   An interview with Lawrence Korb.  Multinational Monitor (Jan./Feb. 2006). 

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. defense budget. He is currently a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress and a senior adviser to the Center for Defense Information, both in Washington, D.C. His 20 books on national security issues include American National Security: Policy and Process, Future Visions for U.S. Defense Policy. He is the author of the 2006 report, "The Korb Report: A Realistic Defense for America," published by Business Leaders for Sensible Priorities.

Multinational Monitor: How much is the United States now spending on defense?

Lawrence Korb: The baseline defense budget this year is $463 billion. The Defense Department says that it is spending $439 billion, but it does not count the expenditures for example in the Department of Energy, which makes the nuclear weapons. That's another almost $22 billion.

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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Lawrence Korb's Proposed Changes & Savings in Weapons Spending Weapons System Bush Administration 2007 fiscal year budgetary request (in $ billions) Korb's proposed "realistic" budgetary expenditure (in $ billions) Savings in fiscal year 2007 (in $ billions BMD 11.3 3 8.3 F/A-22 2.8 1 1.8 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 Total savings from these weapons cuts would be $200 billion over the period 2007-2012. Korb suggests other major savings are available from reducing the nuclear weapons arsenal, eliminating forces not needed in the current geopolitical environment, and eliminating earmarks and waste. Source: "The Korb Report - A Realistic Defense for America," Business Leaders for Sensible Priorities, 2006.

Arkansas congressional delegation contact information

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Arkansas is represented in Congress by two senators and four representatives. Here is how to reach them. None of the senators or representatives publishes his e-mail address, but each can be contacted by filling in forms offered through his website.

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 Longworth Office Building New Jersey and Independence Avenues SE Washington, D.C. 20515 Phone: (202) 225-4076 Fax: (202) 225-5602 JONESBORO: (870) 203-0540 CABOT: (501) 843-3043 MOUNTAIN HOME: (870) 424-2075 Website: www.crawford.house.gov Rep. Tim Griffin 2ND DISTRICT Republican, second term 1232 Longworth Office Building New Jersey and Independence Avenues SE Washington, D.C. 20515 Phone: (202) 225-2506 Fax: (202) 225-5903 Arkansas offices: 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 Cannon House Office Building Washington 20515 Phone: (202) 225-43772 Arkansas offices: CLARKSVILLE: (479) 754-2120 EL DORADO: (870) 881-0631 HOT SPRINGS: (501) 520-5892 PINE BLUFF: (870) 536-3376 Website: www.cotton.house.gov

END PENTAGON BUDGET NEWSLETTER #1