What do we need to do to get our country back on track economically?
The first thing we need to do is to recognize that we have a willful family member with an unlimited credit card who is entirely out of control. That family member is the Pentagon. In the guise of protecting the country, it is undermining the very basis of our economic freedom by throwing money away.
If our economy collapses, we are at the mercy of people who do not have the milk of human kindness in any vein. Not only that, but the waste and, frankly, corruption in what President Eisenhower warned us about – what he called the “military-industrial complex” – is rampant.
As you might remember, Dwight Eisenhower was the Supreme Commander of the Allied forces in Europe during World War II, and president of the United States from 1953 to 1961. He was a soldier all of his life until he became president. He said several very important things in his last speech as president:
“In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.”
Let me tell you something: That man had his crystal ball all shined up and in perfect running order. The military-industrial complex has us by the throat.
I want to digress for a moment.
I am not in any way criticizing the troops risking their lives anywhere in the world. My criticism is of the planners who never hear a shot, never have been in harm’s way and who are in bed with defense contractors fighting like hogs to get both feet in the public trough. Here are some facts.
In April last year, the Government Accountability Office, an oversight body that works for both sides of Congress and is, therefore, politically neutral, found that 23 defense department projects were an average of $1 billion over budget! Per project.
They were also between one year and four years behind their respective schedules.
Unfortunately, this is common for military programs. They are routinely over budget and not on time. Why should they be on time or within budget? If somebody tries to do anything about a project that is not being done on time or within budget, all the contractor needs to do is get the general or admiral, who will go to work for the contractor in a year or so, to start talking about how politicians are undermining our national defense.
A program for an unmanned rocket went from $15.4 billion to $28 billion, nearly a 100-percent increase. What did the government do? It reduced its order for the rockets from 181 to 138, causing me to wonder if we needed 181 (or any) in the first place.
An intelligence-gathering space program went from a cost of $4 billion to more than $10 billion, while the number of intelligence-gathering satellites was reduced from five to three. What do you think about that? You lose nearly half your intelligence-gathering equipment but increase its cost by 250 percent? Where is the sense in that?
The waste goes on. The Pentagon paid $200 each for chemical suits. Some units did not understand what they were for (how can that happen?) and sold them on eBay for $3 each. I don’t know who got the $3.
Then there was the business of $1.2 billion worth of supplies shipped to Iraq, which nobody has heard of since.
Overall military spending has climbed to more than $1 trillion a year. The defense budget for this year is more than $700 billion. However, that does not include the approximately $500 billion we will spend in Iraq. Nearly none of that money went for programs that would, if in place, have prevented the tragedy of 9/11.
The American military budget (not including Iraq) is nearly half the total amount that will be spent this year on the military IN THE WORLD.
Forty-eight percent of the military spending in the world this year is being spent by the United States.
We need to ask ourselves, “What in the pluperfect hell is going on?”
Granted, we have ticked off a lot of folks, but have we really behaved so badly that we must spend as much on defense as the rest of the world combined? Or has President Eisenhower’s dire prediction come to pass, and we are being bent over big-time?
An article in Business Day (not exactly a liberal publication) had this to say: “A group called Business Leaders for Sensible Priorities, which includes 600 executives from companies such as Bell Industries, the Pacific Stock Exchange and the Stride Rite Corporation, issued a report on Pentagon financial practices last May called, “No One Is Accountable.”
It concluded: “The Defense Department’s financial management practices would put any civilian company out of business.”
That is absolutely true. We have 10,000 atomic and hydrogen bombs, enough to sterilize the planet. We could literally kill every plant, bug, bird or plankton. We have the fastest jet fighters. We have the smartest bombs. We do not need to give some general a new toy. If our intelligence people do their job, we should know well in advance if some other branch of our government needs some money, or if our military needs some new weapon. But the gravy train goes on and on. Anybody who had any authority as a procurement person for the U.S. military can easily, after retirement, land a cushy job with any one of a number of defense contractors, especially if they were “easy to deal with” while still on the government payroll. It is enough to make you sick.
President Eisenhower was right on with his comments about the military-industrial complex. Anyone who questions military expenditures is suddenly “weak on defense.”
I was not an Eisenhower fan when he was president. But I was a kid, so what did I know? I do know that I wish we would all listen to and take to heart his parting words:
“We pray that peoples of all faiths, all races, all nations may have their great human needs satisfied; that those now denied opportunity shall come to enjoy it to the full; that all who yearn for freedom may experience its spiritual blessings; that those who have freedom will understand, also, its heavy responsibilities; that all who are insensitive to the needs of others will learn charity; that the scourges of poverty, disease and ignorance will be made to disappear from the earth, and that, in the goodness of time, all peoples will come to live together in a peace guaranteed by the binding force of mutual respect and love.”
Remember, Ike was a Republican. But he was a real Republican patriot who put his country before himself. He was not always right. Nobody ever is. But can you imagine Ike taking $200,000 a year from a contractor who was awarded billions in “emergency” contracts in a war zone, as Cheney did?
Dugan Barr started practicing law in Redding in 1967 as an insurance defense lawyer working for William W. Coshow
In 1973, he formed his own firm doing plaintiff and defense work, primarily in the areas of personal injury and wrongful death. Since that time he has tried more than 200 civil jury cases to verdict. These cases cover a broad spectrum of the law,including personal injury, wrongful death, products liability, airplane crashes, boating accidents, dangerous condition of public property, legal malpractice, medical malpractice, realtor malpractice, accountant malpractice, insurance bad faith, lender liability and securities fraud.
He is married and has five children.
The offices of Barr & Mudford, LLP, are located at 1824 Court St. in Redding and can be reached at 243-8008.
