The end is near for the Pentagon's endless budget explosion
Joel Lerner/Xinhua/Getty Images
- The US spends more on its military than the next nine countries combined.
- The defense budget is bloated and includes plenty of money that could be better used elsewhere.
- During a national pandemic, it is unconscionable that this money isn't being spent on Americans in need.
- Savannah Wooten is an activist and nonprofit professional.
- This is an opinion column. The thoughts expressed are those of the author.
- Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.
The US is, quite literally, addicted to war. While it's no secret that the country has a long history of militarism, the sheer scale of the ongoing excess is staggering. Yet the tide may finally be turning, as Americans begin to take hawkish lawmakers to task for their defense industry contributions and unfettered support for costly forever wars.
As our leaders continue to mismanage the COVID-19 crisis, it's become clear that the nation has abjectly failed to prepare for one of the most severe national security threats of our lifetimes. And it calls into question just how necessary two decades of massive defense spending increases were when the government has proven ineffective against the most deadly threat the country has faced in that time.
US warfighting since 9/11 has cost $6.4 trillion, 770,000 lives, and counting. We spend more on our military than the next nine countries combined. Every year, Congress authorizes hundreds of billions of dollars for the Pentagon, consuming most of our discretionary budget that could otherwise fund programs that meet Americans' needs.
Instead, this money is dumped into a military-industrial vortex, used to pay defense contractors up to three times more than their federal employee counterparts, produce malfunctioning fighter jets and pad a nearly-$100 billion slush fund earmarked for "general warfighting."
The pandemic has amplified anger around this massive amount of US military spending. Frontline workers have called out the fact that billions of dollars supposedly poured into "safety" and "protection" did nothing to prevent the pandemic, provide personal protective equipment or adequately trace the spread of the virus.
This ire peaked in May when the Trump Administration chose to fly elite fighter jets over cities stricken by the virus whilst withdrawing from the World Health Organization and refusing to enact basic protection measures for essential workers. When these aircraft cost a grandiose $60,000 to operate per hour, it's not difficult to understand the frustration.
Similarly, national cries to defund the police have also increased the attention around the idea of defunding the US military. The movement that sprung up after the killing of George Floyd has brought all systems of violence into question, with organizers questioning the whopping $740 billion Pentagon budget alongside the $100 billion national police budget. Both of these massive funds perpetuate racialized violence and consumes funding that could be reallocated to meet tangible community needs.
The padded military budget also enables the US Department of Defense to over-produce gear and machinery that is handed off to police for storage, contributing to the over-militarization of US security forces. Never was this more brazenly on display than this summer, as officers brandished armored vehicles and shields at peaceful protests across the country and tear gassed citizens outside of the White House.
A turning tide in Washington
Make no mistake — there's a good reason that these budgets keep expanding. The defense industry hustles hard for its billions.
Companies like Raytheon, Northrop Grumman, and Boeing have mastered the "money in politics" game by strategically contributing to congressional campaigns and thus ensuring that lawmakers are willing to rubber stamp their endless piggy bank year after year. These companies also embed production facilities in congressional districts around the US to ensure that lawmakers fear constituent backlash if they support Pentagon cuts.
Marketing the military as a job machine masks its costly excesses, a strategy that has largely worked, even though "defense" spending is the worst way to create jobs. Research demonstrates that every federal million dollars spent on green infrastructure, healthcare and education can employ far more people than the same money spent on weapons production. Thankfully, there's good reason to believe the tides are turning.
A growing national movement has put unchecked militarism in the national hot seat. Voters and debate moderators alike challenged Democratic presidential candidates to articulate specific military budget cuts during the primary. Former candidates Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Andrew Yang and Tom Steyer delivered, proposing that billions of the budget be cut away to pay for Medicare for All, the Green New Deal, an infrastructure fund, and education investments, respectively.
That momentum carried into the halls of Congress, as both the House of Representatives and the Senate took unprecedented votes on a joint proposal by Senator Sanders and Reps. Mark Pocan and Barbara Lee to cut and reinvest 10% of the US military budget into the needs of distressed and low-income communities. Although the propositions didn't pass, they were the first votes for significant Pentagon spending cuts in recent decades. An unprecedented 93 House members and 23 senators voted "yes" to cuts, and there's every reason to expect that number to rise in future years.
Regardless of what's next, this vote demonstrated that the public is losing its patience with politicians who are wedded to defense contractor interests. An analysis revealed that Democrats who voted "no" on cutting the budget by the modest 10% — a reduction that would've simply returned the budget to approximately 2018 levels — received 3.4 times more in defense contractor contributions than lawmakers who voted "yes".
Constituents are taking note, and they're not pleased. When polled in advance of the Sanders-Pocan-Lee vote, US voters supported a 10% cut to the Pentagon budget by a 2 to 1 margin, favoring reallocations towards social programming and public health instead.
Similarly, a report released this January revealed that American voters do not actually favor unnecessary Pentagon spending, regardless of whether or not it is channeled back to their own districts. Respondents rejected that premise by a whopping 73% to 13% margin, preferring instead that workers in their district transition to new sectors via short-term re-skilling. By this token, much of what we claim to "know" about the military-industrial complex is a myth.
Congress is now aware that they will be held to task for their practice of writing blank checks to the Pentagon and its beneficiaries. It's a shift that fundamentally changes the game. We're at the beginning of a new era where endless militarism will no longer go unchecked by the American public. Good.
Savannah Wooten is an activist and nonprofit professional working at the intersection of peace-building, anti-militarism, and human rights. She is currently the Campaign Coordinator of the People Over Pentagon campaign at Public Citizen, where she advocates to reduce military spending and reinvest in domestic and human needs priorities.
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