As everyday Nebraskans struggle to run their businesses, keep gas tanks full and put food on the table, one industry is making more money than ever: The war industry.
Imagine looking at your family budget and not being able to tell whether the money you’ve spent is helping meet its most basic needs, like food and clothing. Now imagine being told not to worry about feeding or clothing your family and that what you really need is a shiny new fence (even though the old one isn’t even finished). You can only have one or the other, you are told.
Or imagine looking at your business budget and not being able to account for huge chunks of it — the money has just disappeared. Now imagine that you have an employee who constantly loses money, misses deadlines and under-delivers on promises but keeps asking for more money. Would you give it to them? Of course not.
A good businessperson would find that suggestion absurd and offensive.
You wouldn’t run a household that way and you wouldn’t run a business that way. So why do our policymakers let the Pentagon run that way?
A bipartisan tradition
For decades, presidents and members of Congress of both parties have given the Pentagon and weapons industry hundreds of billions of dollars despite huge cost overruns and serious production delays, and often outright program failures.
The current administration is continuing the decadeslong bipartisan tradition of asking for unchecked money in the name of “defense” and this year has asked Congress to approve a record-high $1.5 trillion for the Pentagon and weapons programs — on top of the money it’s spending on its increasingly unpopular war with Iran. That’s about a 40%
increase over the last fiscal year’s Pentagon spending.
Would $1.5 trillion on weapons and war fill your gas tank, put food on your table or run your business — or make it more expensive to do so? Why do we hear so little from our elected officials on this subject while the waste and unaccountability just goes on and on? Is this use of our hard-earned tax dollars justified?
Is there a better way to spend money to keep us safe? Why aren’t your elected officials talking about this and insisting that the Pentagon and military complex be accountable, and what is their silence costing you?
A costly silence
Shouldn’t we ask if our policymakers’ silence is costing families thousands of dollars per year, only for a false sense of security? Shouldn’t we expect a discussion on whether this spiraling spending is justified?
Although “jobs” is often one reason given for such spending even if wasteful, research shows that it is not providing the economic boon for communities that they keep promising: investments in education and healthcare return 13 and nine jobs per $1 million spent, respectively, compared to only five jobs for $1 million spent on the military.
The president has recently claimed, in seeking to justify the military action in Iran that was started and has continued without congressional vote, that the United States can’t afford things like Medicare and Medicaid because “we’re fighting wars” and “we have to take care of one thing: military protection.”
No one disputes the need for the United States to have a strong military that offers protection at home and for our interests abroad. But for decades, successive administrations and Congresses have asserted that we have to choose between military spending (multiples larger than amounts spent by all our adversaries combined) and everything else needed for a safe and secure existence in our daily lives. We are told
we have no choice but to give the Pentagon and arms manufacturers whatever they want.
It doesn’t have to be this way. We do have a choice. And we do have the right to expect that our representatives will discuss and debate these issues while explaining their spending votes with us.
Join fellow Nebraskans at 6 p.m. Oct. 13 at the Harper Center auditorium at Creighton University to learn more about what’s in the massive Pentagon budget, how we can maintain our safety and security for a lot less money and how you can get your policymakers to end their silence on this issue. Our basic needs are at stake.