There's a tank in your backyard
By Matt Holland
Last Updated: October 26, 2009
Let's suppose you are a typical family and you're managing your monthly budget. The average American family spends $1,100 on housing, $600 on transportation, $450 on food, and $200 on health care.
And let's say on top of these typical expenses you're paying $1,400 to maintain the Army tank you keep in your back yard. You don't really need the tank. You never drive the tank. And the $16,800 you're paying a year to maintain the tank you don't need and never drive is sapping your family's financial future, threatening everything from your ability to pay for your children's college education, to meeting health care expenses, to saving for the future.
Welcome to the federal budget. This year, of the money that Congress and the president choose to spend—often called the discretionary budget—just over half, or about $693 billion, will go to the military. By comparison, $59 billion will be spent on education; $50 billion on children's health insurance; and $8 billion on the Environmental Protection Agency. And the $693 billion on military spending doesn't even include money spent on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Our military spending dwarfs that of Russia, which is no longer a Cold War rival. And it squashes the military budget of China, which is now a major trading partner. In fact, our military budget is equal to the combined military budgets of the next 15 countries behind us.
To be sure, unlike that tank in your back yard, a lot of this spending is necessary. We live in a dangerous era and there are those who would do us harm. And we have responsibilities to allies around the world. But to quote former President Dwight Eisenhower, the former Supreme Allied Commander of World War II: We must not pay one cent for defense more than we have to.
But what constitutes wasteful Pentagon spending? Here are some prime—and expensive—examples:
The F-22 Raptor Fighter Jet. The Air Force itself no longer favors continued production of the F-22, and both President Barack Obama and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates oppose it. The jet was designed for defense against the old Soviet Union, but has never flown in combat. Each jet costs $339 million.
Missile defense. We've spent $150 billion on missile defense since former President Ronald Reagan gave his famous "Star Wars" defense speech. Technology has changed since then, and the types of systems we've been developing don't work. Rather than throw good money after bad, we should invest in research to determine whether missile defense is even feasible and if so, what kinds of systems should be developed.
The C-17 cargo plane. We already have 205 C-17 cargo planes available or on order. This program was scheduled to end in 2009, but was continued after intense lobbying by Boeing, the manufacturer. Just this month, Congressional leaders authorized $2.5 billion for eight more.
This is only the tip of the iceberg—we're spending billions and billions of dollars every year on unnecessary and obsolete weapons systems that do nothing to make our nation more secure, yet saddle generations to come with mountains of debt.
Why? Campaign largesse. The 18 lawmakers who serve on the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense last year inserted more than $335 million in earmarks into the defense spending bill on behalf of their campaign contributors. Those contributors donated $1.3 million to members who sponsored their earmarks.
The good news is we now have a president and a defense secretary who are willing to stand up to unscrupulous defense contractors and those who would do their bidding. Obama and Gates have brought common sense to military spending, proposing the elimination of programs that don't work or are obsolete and allocating resources to adapt to modern welfare.
This fresh approach will free up resources for other areas of the budget, such as health care, education, energy independence, and various urgent needs. It's time we demand that Congress act responsibility and trim the pork from the military budget.
Matt Holland is director of TrueMajority.org, the online department of USAction.
2 Comments | Add a comment
Is this a news item or opinion piece? Found it under news.
Lot of flawed assertions here. I'll not comment anymore on the c-17, but to state that the missile system that was beng developed and soon to have been put in place is flawed, and not factual. It seems all you have to do is repeat the Democratic mantras long enough people will believe it and not really check the facts.
How can you as a supposedly responsible newspaper call this a news article? | back up 1
Oct 23, 2009 12:27 PM |
| In our estimation, allocation of USD2.5 billion for 10 more Boeing C-17 Globemaster III's is most appropriate and timely. The most recent efforts by certain policy makers (10/21/09) to excise funding from the 2010 Budget are best disingenuous and at worst, representative of an agenda having nothing to do with concern for the 'warfighter" or the American worker. One must also marvel at the apparent and stunning lack of comprehension that the defense industrial base and the industrial base are one and the same.
Here's why: Since so many editorials, including that found in the Ellsworth County Independent Reporter are containing C-17 catch phrases like "unnecessary", "unneeded","not requested", "The Air Force says 205 is enough", one assumes that such assertions are fact checked to ascertain the worthiness of these comments. Also, we trust the following and lengthy observations do not abuse forum guidelines, comments which we believe may add to author and reader knowledge base relative to this superlative, and quite necessary, airlifter which has no true near, mid or long term replacement:
Global HeavyLift Holdings, LLC, a Florida incorporated, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan based Defense Logistics Agency listed (ccr gov) entity has stated publicly and often, the data to which the SECDEF, the SECAF and others have referred to as reasons for termination of C-17 production, have been debunked as based on flawed analytics and inapplicable, outdated, conflict assumptions by the GAO and Congress, or do not exist. They can only be referring to the 2005 2006 Mobility Capabilities Study (MCS) produced by the Pentagon Office of Program Analysis and Evaluation (PA and E) and the Strategic airlift section of the 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) which echoes MCS conclusions that "180 C-17s augmented by 112 REAMP RERP C-5s was enough". The new MCS is expected to recommend more C-17s to replace ancient C-5s which can now be retired.
Being part, for nearly a decade, of an industry government team which included National Security strategist Dr. Sheila R. Ronis, (a valued member of the Project on National Security Reform PNSR org, tasked with rewriting the 1947 National Security Act), that helped restructure the original CAMAA (Commercial Application of Military Airlift Aircraft) program, the comments of a very upset AF General were relayed to me the day the mandate was implemented: "We keep trying to push these aircraft C-5s out the back door, and they Congress and LMCO keep pushing them in the front door. From this point on, it's going to be damned difficult to get C-17s at the levels we need them (at least 222, with 300 plus quite usable)."
I should also note that Dr. Ronis and I were privileged to work with former SECAF Dr. James Roche who tasked us with crafting what we felt would be a more readily implementable CAMAA strategy in the form of a white paper that can be accessed via slideshare dot net search for "Commercial Application of Military Airlift Aircraft: Observations ".
Puzzling Behavior
The arguments presented by C-17 antagonists have at best been puzzling to us and most certainly to Boeing, since we know there is no basis whatsoever for their assertions of "we have enough C-17s and buying more is a waste of money, epitomizes 'pork barrel' spending and is a poster child for the extremes of earmarks."
Nothing is further from the truth, and we openly challenge our colleagues both within government and those who represent the private sector cheering section calling for the demise of this indispensable airlifter, currently flying at over 159 percent of mission utilization projections, to produce the data to support their arguments. It is not enough to say "planes the AF did not request or need", "unwanted C-17s", or, "The SECAF says they have more than enough to handle even worst case scenarios". No, one must be able to support such contentions, and we must not forget the DoD spends hundreds of millions to contract Russian/Ukrainian owned An-124s to make up for in-theater strategic airlift shortfalls. So much for "we have enough".
Short story? The data do not exist to support C-17 termination.
http://bx.businessweek.com/boeing-strike/view?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.slideshare.net%2FGHHLLC%2Fglobal-heavylift-holdings-llc-asks-boeing-c17-detractors-to-produce-internal-dod-analyses-supporting-kill-efforts
Also, we have to marvel at the lengths certain colleagues in the private sector constituting elements of what we believe to be an "intellectual" assault on C-17, are willing to go in demanding the end of this aircraft. This, in the form of specious, if not fallacious, claims relative to C-17 cost which one think-tank claimed was USD376 million (included per plane development costs; an atypical publicly stated cost representation that goes beyond the disingenuous), another organization, 276 milliion. The AF gets them according to Boeing and the service itself, for 200 million or soon, even less, as Boeing Long Beach administrative and production personnel become more efficient everyday through the process of continuous improvement. Economies of scale will reduce costs even further, thereby reinforcing the wisdom of a multi-year buy(2010-2020) for 120+ C-17s.
And then, there are those who make an "apples to oranges" comparison of retrofitted C-5s versus new C-17, citing "USD81 million for the larger capacity (120 ton) Galaxy as opposed to 200 million for the smaller (87 ton) Globemaster III. As recently noted in an Aviation Week piece by Amy Butler, the comparative numbers presented in response to a clearly planted question, taken at face value, would cause any reasonable person to conclude that support of C-17 would justify an immediate psychiatric examination. That is, up until the moment they are gobsmacked by the operational realities of Iraq and especially Afghanistan: C-5s require significant infrastructure, and as a colleague said "There ain't a lot of that in Afghanistan."
Their operation, large targets they are and not likely to be missed by even the most incompetent of attacking enemy fighter pilots, also requires control of the air in the battlespace (ask any driver what ship they'd like to be in, C-5 vs C-17, in a chance encounter with a Mig-35 (the generation 4.5 Russian fighter that in the view of some analysts, can defeat F-35 and more than hold its own against the "unnecessary" F-22). Some may also remember Tom Clancy's treatment in his book World War III of troop-laden C-5s encountering armed Russian bombers) .
Indeed, C-17, owing to its extraordinary ability to operate on underprepared, even unprepared, runways as long as it's flat or near flat, earth (the proposed C-17B is designed to land in mud or beach sand) in austere in-theater locales makes it the indispensable, life-saving, battle winning, strategic/tactical airlifter it has proven to be. In Air Force tests, it has landed and taken off with 22 tons aboard in distances less than 1350'.
Its amazing performances, whether humanitarian/disaster relief or conflict support missions, caused me to remark in a presentation some years ago, "The only way the DoD could do better relative to a mission capable aircraft is to introduce a 489 knot, 2500 nautical mile range Sikorsky Skycrane with 87 ton capacity. To be sure, comparing C-17 to C-5, An-124 or B-747 is like comparing Fat Albert (the Cosby character) to Michael Jordan."
Most importantly, C-17 is the ideal, if not perfect, airlift platform for addressing the potential of conventional and asymmetric warfare existing concomitantly, along with an observable increase in the frequency of disaster/humanitarian relief scenarios. This reality dictates need for an ability to rapidly project significant force in a way that acknowledges the comfortable bi-polarity of the Cold War has been replaced by the dangers and unpredictability of a militarily/economically emergent China, Russia's new found assertiveness, a nuclear armed Iran, the traditional uncertainties associated with North Korea's beligerence and terrorist organizations possessed of global reach.
A "Tank in Your Backyard"? Please...
China: The Other Elephant in The Room
No one at the Department of Defense, no one, as the mid-September comments by Secretary Gates to the Air Force Association starkly confirmed, believes China to simply be a "Trading partner" with a modest defense budget. Rather, they are right now engaged in the largest offensive build-up in the history of mankind. Readers may find the data developed by the United States China Economic Security Commission (http://www.USCC.org) to arrive at conclusions diametrically opposite to those of the author of this editorial.
http://www.slideshare.net/guestde926c4/global-heavylift-holdingsllc-cites-absolute-need-for-commercial-boeing-c17-bc17based-permanent-air-augmentation-of-us-industrial-base-global-supply-chain-notes-chinas-virtual-control-of-oceanborne-shipping-and-rise-as-naval-power
Lastly, Gen. Eisenhower was no fool, and he would be appalled at the way his name is being invoked when discussing matters of national and economic security. He was not decrying the existence of the "Military Industrial Complex" but the excesses that are bound to exist as a direct result of human greed. He knew and understood that the defense industrial base and the industrial base are one and the same, and must continue robust yet controlled. Indeed, this "Complex" won World War II, an outcome that was not assured even in the Spring of 1945.
Nevertheless, we appreciate the efforts of the Ellsworth County Independent Reporter editorial board in trying to add substance to what has become chaotic, non-solutions oriented, discussion.
Myron D. Stokes
Managing Member
Global HeavyLift Holdings,LLC
Defense Logistics Agency listed (ccr.gov)
globalheavyliftholdings at ymail.com | Myron D. Stokes, Managing Memb
Oct 23, 2009 06:18 AM |
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