Pentagon Rolls Out The (Pork) Barrel

(The Nation)  This column was written by John Nichols.

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In a Congress where it has become fashionable to gripe about earmarks of a few hundred thousand dollars to pay for small-town museums and urban parks — and, until last week, for construction and repair of bridges — the most expensive waste and corruption is always contained in the annual Department of Defense appropriation. Nowhere in the whole of the budgetary blueprint for allocating tax dollars could a serious observer of federal programs find more bloat, inefficiency, hidden excess and overt overspending that in the Defense plan.

Yet, while members in both parties preach from their bully pulpits about the need to do away with earmarks, the House with virtually no debate on Sunday approved $459.6 billion in new money for the Pentagon. You want earmarks? "This bill has more than 1,300 earmarks. The notion that these had proper review is simply not reasonable," said Arizona Congressman Jeff Flake, an Arizona Republican who gave a good speech but still joined the overwhelming majority of House members in voting for every one of those earmarks — and the rest of the $459.6 billion in spending.

Of course, that amount does not include the extra $147 billion in Iraq war funding that the Bush administration has demanded that Congress approve when the Congress returns from its August recess.

Nor does it include the include the various and sundry additional requests to cover nuclear weapons costs, international FBI expenses, the rising demands of the General Services Administration's National Defense Stockpile and Selective Services requirements. Add on debt costs attributable to defense spending and, according to authoritative Center for Defense Information estimates, U.S. taxpayers will dole out at least $878 billion to cover military costs in 2008.

As CDI notes, the final total "will probably be even more."

The key word there is "probably," because even the most skilled analysts can never place a precise figure on what the Pentagon is or will be spending.

What is certain is the fact — confirmed by conservative and liberal analysts — that the bloated defense budget contains waste on a scale unimaginable to even the most ardent earmarkers.

So why was there no serious debate on the Pentagon budget? It's not just that the Bush administration and its Republican allies in Congress continue to use the war on terror as an excuse to enrich defense contractors such as Dick Cheney's Halliburton. As Winslow Wheeler, a veteran of 31 years working with mostly Republican senators on defense issues and a former assistant director of evaluations of national defense programs with the U.S. Government Accountability Office, "Now in control of Congress and having made multiple promises to restore oversight of the war in Iraq and the executive branch in general, the Democrats have been successfully rolled by the White House, the military services, and the big spender pundits."

Adds Wheeler, who now directs CDI's Straus Military Reform Project, "Knowing a patsy when they see one, the defense contractors are now piling on…" And they are getting a lot more "free money" than any of the communities across the U.S. that hope for a tiny earmark here or there to pay for a new bike path or a polka museum.

So how many members of the House refused to get rolled? Not many. The final vote on the Pentagon appropriation for the 2008 fiscal year was 395-13. The "no" votes came from: California's Bob Filner, Barbara Lee and Lynn Woolsey, Georgia's John Lewis, Massachusetts' Barney Frank, Minnesota's Keith Ellison, New York's Nydia Velázquez, Oregon's Earl Blumenauer; New Jersey's Donald Payne, Ohio's Dennis Kucinich, Washington's Jim McDermott and Wisconsin's Tammy Baldwin — all Democrats — and a single Republican "fiscal conservative": Michigan's Vernon Ehlers.

Twenty-four additional members, 14 Republicans and 10 Democrats, did not vote. Two Republican presidential candidates were among their number: Texan Ron Paul and Colorado's Tom Tancredo.

Kucinich, it should be noted, is running for the Democratic presidential nomination.

So far, he is the only contender for the presidency to actually come out against the most excessive and irresponsible spending in the federal budget.

Other presidential candidates — Democrats Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Chris Dodd an Joe Biden and Republicans John McCain and Sam Brownback — will have a chance to vote on the Pentagon spending bill after the August recess.

How they vote will tell Americans everything that needs to be known about who is "fiscally responsible" and who is not.

By John Nichols
Reprinted with permission from The Nation

[sjc_1]

We spend more on defense than any other nation and are the largest debtor nation. Those facts alone should tell you something. It is time that we stop using defense spending as a form of corporate welfare and start being smart about how we spend our money. The Pentagon has failed to pass an accounting audit for decades. There are billions of dollars that they can not account for. These are not black fund secret projects, they just don't know where it went. Until they can account for the money that they get, they should not get more.

[maryocon]

Take advantage of this..buy defense stocks and get rich. Unfortanly I can't even afford to buy one stock, but if I did have some money that is where I would put it.

[wiredwilly]

All right CBS ! The Nation ? Perhaps CBS is finally remembering it's about journalism and defending the Republic, not lulling everyone into a brain dead stupor for the sake of corporate sponsors.

[harp1963]

You know what, it's good when America gets the budget pork, that's who is supposed to get it. If we got half as upset over this dumb war as we do over a small airport in Wisconsin being extended with taxpayer money, we would all be a lot better off than we, and our future generations will be, who will get stuck with the bill for the Iraqi war.

[harp1963]

Everytime the Democrats try and reign in the Bush Administration through budget cuts, the far right Republican "praise the Lord and convulse" wackos attack them relentlessly about being un- American, unpatriotic, weak, wimpie communists.

So until Hilary is President, you aren't going to see much change. That is, if Bush and Cheney don't find a way to circumvent the two term presidential limit and seiz power through a military coup that installs them as King and Queen(I think Cheney would make a good Queen) of America. I can almost see George bending Cheney over the Oval office desk and Cheney telling George to spank him harder.

[afmca]

What 2006 proved is whether you have DeLay or Pelosi in the House or Frist or Reid in the Senate, what you are left with is corruption on the grandest scale. Republicans are upfront and honest in their disgust for the middle class and their love for the rich and connection. The Democratics are hypocritical and deceiving in their disgust for the middle class and their love for the rich and poor, which they keep dependent to stay in power. The only losers - the middle class. We need a third party to represent the middle and to rid America of the influence of the fringes. This will never happen and America is in a slow death spiral of our own making.

[condumism]

the Leader in Pentagon PORK: LOS ALAMOS NATIONAL LAB, Los Alamos, NM! Clearly, the epicenter of time keeping FRAUD in the USA, with ZERO OVERSIGHT from its shadowy manager, LANS, LLC.

WAKE UP AMERICA! YOU'RE BEING SWINDLED EACH AND EVERYDAY by CORPORATE LOBBYISTS that control the US NAZI PARTY, aka; the REPUBLICON PARTY! Call your Congressman today and inquire if LANS, LLC is being held accountable for all the time-keeping FRAUD that is so much a part of the culture at the mostly not needed Los Alamos National Lab, located in Los Alamos, NM! US Senator Pete Dominici, Republicon, NM is aware of this problem but does NOTHING about it!

[brianbwb-2009]

"This bill has more than 1,300 earmarks. The notion that these had proper review is simply not reasonable," said Arizona Congressman Jeff Flake, an Arizona Republican who gave a good speech but still joined the overwhelming majority of House members in voting for every one of those earmarks %u2014 and the rest of the $459.6 billion in spending."

See? They know they BS us, and we know they BS us, but they vote for it anyway, so they can get their cut from the kickbacks and other forms of corruption in the bill.

Democraps and Repubicons, Left, Right, they are all corrupt, every last one of them, I challenge any of the pondscum in government from either side that may read this to join this blog and show how they are not corrupt.