Via: Salon
Never mind what you heard about massive new cuts to the defense industry. Here’s how contractors avoided calamity
Tuesday, Mar 12, 2013
By Ben Freeman
If you believe the hype, sequestration is going to deal a catastrophic blow to the politically powerful defense industry.
It’s a “doomsday mechanism,” former Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta declared. The Aerospace Industries Association (AIA) – the leading advocacy group for Pentagon contractors – has also warned of the allegedly dire consequences of sequestration for their industry (which receives nearly $1 billion a day from the Pentagon), expressing “extreme disappointment that sequestration was not averted.”
The political implications for the contractor lobby are just as calamitous, we’re told. Roll Call’s Eliza Newlin Carney says the enactment of sequestration “marks a moment of truth for an industry that has lost clout and allies on Capitol Hill, probably for good.”
And, of course, sequestration’s plan to reduce Pentagon spending by $492 billion over the next nine years was the reason Democrats mistakenly believed Republicans would seek to avoid it at all costs.
Don’t believe the hype…
The truth? We’re watching a political magic trick. Right now, we’re at the part of the show where it appears Congress and the President sawed through Pentagon contractors. They’re moaning and complaining – giving the audience a good show – but fear not, contracts will be just fine.
This is largely because of the rock solid foundation the industry is standing on. Every year for the last five years the Pentagon has doled out at least $360 billion to contractors. In fact, every year since the war in Afghanistan began contractors have received more than half of the Pentagon’s total budget. In other words, contractors have received more taxpayer money than the Department of Defense’s civilian employees and nearly 1.4 million active duty military personnel combined.
All that money has really added up. So much so that Pentagon contractors are sitting on a backlog of contracts worth nearly as much as the entirety of Pentagon sequestration.
Read more: here
Unbelievable…no morality at all is left…It is a tax on all of us for the benefit of a few…
-Moose
