The Real U.S. National Security Budget - The Figure No One Wants You to See

[Octafish]

What the Koch Class really doesn't want you to see...

The Real U.S. National Security Budget

The Figure No One Wants You to See

By Chris Hellman
Tom Dispatch.com

What if you went to a restaurant and found it rather pricey? Still, you ordered your meal and, when done, picked up the check only to discover that it was almost twice the menu price.

Welcome to the world of the real U.S. national security budget. Normally, in media accounts, you hear about the Pentagon budget and the war-fighting supplementary funds passed by Congress for our conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. That already gets you into a startling price range -- close to $700 billion for 2012 -- but that’s barely more than half of it. If Americans were ever presented with the real bill for the total U.S. national security budget, it would actually add up to more than $1.2 trillion a year.

Take that in for a moment. It’s true; you won’t find that figure in your daily newspaper or on your nightly newscast, but it’s no misprint. It may even be an underestimate. In any case, it’s the real thing when it comes to your tax dollars. The simplest way to grasp just how Americans could pay such a staggering amount annually for “security” is to go through what we know about the U.S. national security budget, step by step, and add it all up.

So, here we go. Buckle your seat belt: it’s going to be a bumpy ride.

Fortunately for us, on February 14th the Obama administration officially released its Fiscal Year (FY) 2012 budget request. Of course, it hasn’t been passed by Congress -- even the 2011 budget hasn’t made it through that august body yet -- but at least we have the most recent figures available for our calculations.

CONTINUED...

http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175361/tomgram%3A_chris_hellman%2C_%241.2_trillion_for_national_security/

Shocking. Absolutely shocking.

[Octafish]

1. Political contributions by Defense Industries

Defense

Although the defense sector contributes far less money to politicians than many other sectors, it is one of the most powerful in politics.The sector includes defense aerospace, defense electronics and other miscellaneous defense companies.

Individuals and political action committees associated with the defense sector contributed nearly $24 million to political candidates and committees during the 2008 campaign cycle, split evenly between Democrats and Republicans...

There's so much money to be made off War Inc, they don't have to worry about political contributions as much as other economic sectors. Lobbying may be another matter. - Octafish

[Octafish]

4. Lobbying expenditures by Defense Industries

About $10 mill seems more than a tad low.

[JDPriestly]

2. K&R

[Octafish]

3. War means money

American Enterprise Institute



Fine people.

[Hawkowl]

11. That's why we have wars.

Soldiers don't "sacrifice" for their country, they sacrifice for the Koch brothers and other wealthy sociopaths.

[wildbilln864]

5. k&r! nt

[Octafish]

7. Too Good to Be True: The Outlandish Story of Wedtech

Remember? WEDTECH was a small scandal involving Ed Meese, Ronald Radar Robot consiglieri, and his cronies.

Too Good to Be True: The Outlandish Story of Wedtech

James Traub

Reviewed by Joseph Nocera | Jul 27, 1990
Entertainment Weekly

EXCERPT...

Here's the surprise: The Wedtech saga, at least as it's laid out here by James Traub, is not so complicated after all. Founded in the mid-1960s by a idealistic high school dropout named John Mariotta (who really did want to bring jobs to the South Bronx), Wedtech became a very minor defense contractor wedded to the government's minority set-aside program, which was originally intended to help companies like Wedtech.

The intentions were honorable at first, but along the way everything — and I mean everything — got perverted. The people who ran the company began telling small lies to get into the set-aside program, which eventually evolved into preposterous deceptions. The people in government were inclined to promote Wedtech because it seemed such a success story, such an affirmation of Reagan's values. But this too became horribly perverted as Wedtech's ''influence,'' much of it purchased, caused it to land contracts it had no hope of completing, and to get many other favors it did not deserve. (This is where Wallach and, according to a special prosecutor, Meese came in.)

Wedtech ate through money; at one point near the end, the company issued $75 million in bonds and was virtually broke two weeks later. Its corporate documents were fictions. There was always somebody — a ''consultant,'' a politician, a fixer — with his hand out, especially at times of crisis, of which there were many. ''Destiny,'' writes Traub, in one of his many lovely lines, ''sometimes seemed to escort Wedtech through the world with a lantern, looking for yet another dishonest man.''

So I take it back: Wedtech was pretty complicated. What I should have said is that Traub has done such a wonderful job of unraveling the Wedtech scandal, of mining it for its humor and pathos and subtlety, that it doesn't seem complicated by the time you're finished reading. It seems, instead, understandable, perhaps inevitable, given both the rich and improbable cast of characters and the desperate choices the company was constantly faced with.

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http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,317853,00.html

EW, of all places, truth.

[leftstreet]

6. K&R

Good article

[Octafish]

13. Report: Wartime Contractors Waste, Steal Tens Of Billions -- Then Come Back For More

You might also enjoy this one:

Report: Wartime Contractors Waste, Steal Tens Of Billions -- Then Come Back For More

Dan Froomkin
HuffPost Reporting

WASHINGTON -- The chairmen of the bipartisan Commission on Wartime Contracting decried on Monday a federal system that has allowed contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan to commit fraud -- then get hired again and again.

"For the 200,000 people employed by contractors to provide support and capability in Iraq and Afghanistan, accountability is too often absent, diluted, delayed, or avoided," Republican co-chair Chris Shays, formerly a longtime congressman from Connecticut, said while calling to order a hearing of the commission Monday.

There are so many barriers to suspending or banning contractors with violations that "untrustworthy contractors can continue profiting from government work, responsible businesses may be denied opportunities, and costs to taxpayers can climb," Shays said in a statement co-authored with his Democratic co-chair, Michael Thibault, formerly the deputy director of the Defense Contract Audit Agency.

The commission last week issued a blistering interim report to Congress: "At What Risk? Correcting over-reliance on contractors in contingency operations," which concluded that "misspent dollars run into the tens of billions" out of the nearly $200 billion spent on contracts and grants since 2002 to support military, reconstruction and other U.S. operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

SNIP...

Just last month, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction warned that the entire $11.4 billion for constructing and maintaining nearly 900 Afghan National Security Forces facilities is at risk due to inadequate planning.

CONTINUED w/links...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/28/wartime-contractors-waste-billions_n_829251.html

When Chickenhawks rule.

[ThomCat]

8. Whenever the media claims that the pentagon

isn't the biggest drain on our budget you know they are participating in the big lie. The pentagon, and everything that runs through the pentagon, IS the biggest drain on our federal budget and has been for a hell of a long time.

If we ever really wanted to get have a functional economy that is where we would start.

Gut the defense budget, kill the secret expenditures, kill the parasitic relationships we have with defense contractors, and redirect that money to infrastructure and social spending where it truly benefits our country and our people.

This idea that pumping money into the pentagon is the best way to benefit our country really does represent a sick definition of "our country." It's a definition that doesn't contain any of our people, and certainly doesn't look out for the health or welfare of any of our people. All that matters is the power and ego of certain few people in power at the top, and the wealth and influence of the contractors who humor them and feed off of all of us.

[Octafish]

14. Where Wall Street and War Mongers Intersect...

...is where The Prince resides.



Throw in the fascist racist rapacious gangster psycho traitors for minions and we have a good perspective of those who've perched at the top of the heap since November 22, 1963.

Since then, the state has served exclusively to benefit one type of person and one class of people. And they don't like to mix with We the People or the little people -- let alone share any of their property.

I remember what the country was like in the 60s. From the space program to public schools to the councils of government -- the nation getting better with good jobs, good schools, a new attitude where Uncle Sam actually practiced the Golden Rule internationally. Thus, we had a most promising future. People could see it. We knew we were part of something great. The vision trickled down, then. We were progressing toward peace and prosperity. We knew we didn't belong to anybody; we didn't feel "owned" or "used" like so many do today.

[zipplewrath]

9. Double dipping

They start right away with the expression "national security" which will allow them to include all manner of costs including embassy security, the FBI, and UN expenditures. But they go on to include costs such as veteran's hospitals.

It isn't that one can't make the case of these costs, it is that these SAME costs will be used in other contexts. When discussion how much health care costs the government directly, veterans hospitals are often included in the costs. When the discussion is how much is spent on education, the costs of the military acadamies will often be included. "Scientific research" they'll include NASA, which was included in this calculation, as part of that cost.

The reality is that our military, and yes our entire national security infrastructure is interwined deeply into our government, and our society. From the beginning of this country, the line between civil, military, and private forces has been vague and mixed. West Point was created by Jefferson because he wanted a national college. A motivation for both the transcontinetal railroad, and the interstate system, was national defense. Education needs have often been connected to the needs of the military to be able to draft recruits who could read, write, and do basic mathematics. WWI was a major reason for the advancement of public education into "post secondary" educations.

We spend way too much on our military adventures, and in preparing for wars we'll never fight. We don't have to resort to these kind of "double dips" to make that point, and can undermine the very criticism by doing so.

[Poboy]

10. K&R to the moon!

[Poboy]

12. .

[Mnemosyne]

15. K&R for more visibility and disgust. n/t

[mistertrickster]

16. Remember that when you pay your taxes by April 15. Practically all of it goes to war.

Or the preparation of war.

[Enthusiast]

17. KICKED and RECOMMENDED!

How bad was it that Eisenhower felt the need to address this in his last speech to the nation?

[Poboy]

18. .

[Poboy]

19. .

[Hotler]

20. kicking. n/t