It's time for some serious spring
cleaning at the Pentagon.
These
days, the news cycle rotates between the deficit, bouts of extreme weather,
horrific crimes, taxation, immigration, gun control (or the lack thereof), and
a few other regularly reported crises. Lost in this shuffle is any heated
discussion of the biggest threat to America’s well-being: the
military-industrial complex.
A
generation into the nation’s lonely status as the world’s sole superpower, and
a decade after the start of the tragic and pointless Iraq War, the Pentagon
continues to be several times the size we need for security’s sake. But there
seems little we can do about the more than $500 billion a year our government
spends on “defense.”
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| Zero Peeps Thirty |
Or
consider the way military contractors have artfully placed factories in every
congressional district to generate overwhelming grassroots political support.
This is a smart move because lawmakers fear challenging even the most futile
weapons when it constitutes political suicide.
There’s
no national security threat that warrants spending these vast sums. Even if we
decide that we must keep on ruling the world, we can figure out a way to do it
for much less.
After
all, how many jumbo or “super” aircraft carriers does it take to hold the globe
at bay when no one else bothers with them anymore? How many of the latest
generation of drones are required to patrol empty skies? How many nuclear
warheads are enough when no one dares use any? We have about 5,000.
Maintaining
these stockpiles wastes money at a time when our safety net is being threatened
with major cuts. We could readily steer this surplus spending into higher
priorities like education or our crumbling infrastructure, but we don’t.
How
often do you hear of our 800 overseas military bases or the impact of our
troops stationed in 150 foreign lands? And why is it so hard for Democrats and Republicans alike to accept the need to reduce the scale
and scope of the bases we have stateside, which were built to accommodate far
more troops than now belong to our armed forces?
There’s
no better symbol of what’s wrong with U.S. military priorities than the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, an astronomic turkey that has cost taxpayers
$400 billion so far. Equipped with that boatload of cash, Lockheed Martin has
produced 99 prototypes of the nuclear-capable weapon, none of which have been
deemed fit to confront common aviation challenges such as rain, lightning, and
the dark.
There
are countless better ways to spend those tax dollars. Consider this: One
billion dollars spent on the Pentagon covers about 11,000 workers. If that
money were funneled into education instead, it would generate more than 26,000 jobs.
This
cherry blossom season, Uncle Sam should roll up his sleeves and do some serious
spring cleaning at the Pentagon.
Emily Schwartz Greco is the managing editor
of OtherWords,
a non-profit national editorial service run by the Institute for Policy
Studies. OtherWords columnist
William A. Collins is a former state representative and a former mayor of
Norwalk, Connecticut. OtherWords.org
