US Military Contracts and Defense Spending | Hacker News Reader

US Military Contracts and Defense Spending

militaryindustrialcomplex.com

42 pointsferdo4 comments

I love that Eisenhower speech, but it's a good idea to read it in its entirety: http://coursesa.matrix.msu.edu/~hst306/documents/indust.html. It's not a screed against the military-industrial complex, but an urging for balance.

More context for the quote on the front page of that site:

"A vital element in keeping the peace is our military establishment. Our arms must be mighty, ready for instant action, so that no potential aggressor may be tempted to risk his own destruction.

Our military organization today bears little relation to that known by any of my predecessors in peacetime, or indeed by the fighting men of World War II or Korea.

Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United States corporations.

This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence -- economic, political, even spiritual -- is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.

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.

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together."

The sentence in italics is interesting. Depending on whether you count the VA, the U.S. defense budget is $700-$800 billion. Corporate profits last year were roughly $1.8 trillion.

Government accounting is a tricky business, especially when dealing with matters such as this. At one point, DoD couldn't account for over $2 trillion and that was over ten years ago:

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18563_162-325985.html

I agree that balance is key, as emphasized in Eisenhower's warning. From my perspective, that balance was lost long ago as no one in the upper tiers of government, the defense establishment or in finance/industry (or the citizenry) paid one bit bit of attention to any of Ike's warnings in that speech:

> "Another factor in maintaining balance involves the element of time. As we peer into society's future, we -- you and I, and our government -- must avoid the impulse to live only for today, plundering, for our own ease and convenience, the precious resources of tomorrow. We cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without risking the loss also of their political and spiritual heritage. We want democracy to survive for all generations to come, not to become the insolvent phantom of tomorrow. "

a light at the end of the tunnel :)

http://comptroller.defense.gov/fiar/overview.html

"Achieve audit readiness of the Statement of Budgetary Resources (SBR) by the end of calendar year (CY) 2014."

and

" Achieving these goals will be challenging, but with the Secretary's involvement, which has elevated audit readiness to an "all hands" DoD-wide effort, the Department's ability to achieve these goals has been significantly increased."

let me repeat :

"...ability to achieve these goals has been significantly increased..."

So it seems that the biggest non-profit in the world can be financially audited somewhere in the next 10 years (for the first time in decades) :)

The Pentagon doesn't take money directly out of the Treasury. The fact that it has trouble keeping track of what it spends money on doesn't mean that we don't know precisely how much is appropriated from the Treasury for its use.

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