US economy - The Pentagon is as bloated as Wall Street - by Vice Admiral Jack Shanahan
The U.S. defense establishment is in dire need of a rescue. But unlike Wall Street, where the taxpayer threw billions of dollars at the problem, a Pentagon bailout requires taking money away—and fast. Late in September, when America’s attention was consumed by the presidential election and the collapse of the financial sector, the House of Representatives passed a defense authorization bill totaling $612 billion. US overall defense spending, factoring in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, has been stretching toward the $700 billion mark for some time now, the highest level since the end of World War II.
One whistle blower at the audit agency summed it up this way: “We have been basically on the trust system for years…It did not work on Wall Street and it is not working for federal contracts.” With national defense, however, lives as well as livelihoods are on the line, and wasting billions of taxpayer dollars during an economic crisis puts both at risk. The result of years of mismanagement has been smaller forces; fewer planes, tanks and ships; and all at greater expense. Pentagon watchdogs and defense experts have been warning about the runaway train in defense spending for years. But now that the economic crisis threatens the entire federal budget, even voices within the Pentagon are sounding the alarm. According to the “Boston Globe” on Nov. 10, a recent report by the Defense Business Board, an official government oversight group, concluded that current Pentagon spending is simply “not sustainable” and urged the incoming president to make sweeping cuts across major programs.
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