Editor’s note: This op-ed is by Bob Stannard, a lobbyist and author. This piece first appeared in the Bennington Banner.
As a Vermonter, if you never learn anything else in your life you learn (or should learn) to be frugal. Hard times are a way of life in this state and have been since the first people moved up here from Connecticut 250 years ago.
Vermonters are, as a rule, a generous lot, but they hang pretty close to the buck. They manage their money carefully and accept nothing less than a good deal. They work hard, bank their money and pay as they go. If they don’t have the money for something they want, but perhaps don’t need, then they don’t buy it. With the exception of big-ticket items they strive to stay out of debt.
Now this obviously doesn’t apply to each and every Vermonter, but it was the way I was raised and hopefully the way I taught my kids to live. It’s a shame our Congress consists of people from all over the country, instead of just Vermont. We might be in better fiscal shape.
It was hard not be amused this past week when the emotional basket case, Speaker of the House John Boehner, appeared on the news declaring that should the president request the need to raise our debt ceiling that he was going to insist that we cut spending.
On the face of it, this does sound like a prudent course of action, but the devil is always in the details. Lest we forget, the reason we have a debt crisis is because the previous administration cut the government’s revenue stream while simultaneously increasing spending; on and off the books (the Iraq War was not on the books, but that cost a pretty penny).
Now that fiscal mayhem had been created, they can use the mayhem as a tool to dismantle any and all programs that benefit the people of this country; i.e., Social Security, Medicare, education, etc. Ironically, the one item that appears to be untouchable, at least as far as Speaker Boehner and his friends are concerned, is the Pentagon and military spending. Some folks in Congress just can’t spend enough on “protecting our nation’s security.”
The president’s FY 2010 proposed budget for the military was $663.84 billion. Congress added $16 billion more than what the president requested, plus an additional $37 billion to support our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. (As an aside, since 2001 these two wars combined have cost us $1,333,987,750 and counting).
One would think that if we’re going to be living in austere times then perhaps it might be acceptable to at least consider the possibility of maybe taking an askance look at the military budget (best to plug your ears here to muffle the howls and squeals and grab a Kleenex at the mention of this).
Why is it so tough to cut military spending? Those folks running the military are no fools. They know that by spreading the money around they will have a majority of members of Congress vested in their program. No one can say no to a military contract. Here’s an example.
If you’d like to learn more about how you are being scammed each and every day by your military and the private companies that it supports you should read Rachel Maddow’s new book, “Drift: The Unmooring of the American Military.”
You may recall back in the ‘80s when we learned that the military spent $800 for a toilet. You remember that feeling of outrage you had? Think of that time as the good ol’ days, because today we have the $17,000 drip pan.
Thanks to the Republican chair of the House Appropriations Committee, Rep. Harold Rogers of Kentucky, a company known as Phoenix Products won a huge government contract to build drip pans for Black Hawk helicopters, which apparently leak oil down into the cabin and onto the pilot. Why these multi-million dollar machines leak oil onto the pilot to begin with is another matter. Instead of building a helicopter that doesn’t leak they’ve created a drip pan to catch the oil. A competing company said that they could build the same drip pan for $2,500. The good news is that Phoenix Co. offered the military a discounted price for the pans; originally they were going to charge $19,000, but dropped the fee to $17,000.
The difference is that the Phoenix Co. donates a lot of money to this congressman known as the “Prince of Pork” by the Lexington Herald-Leader. You might have thought they would’ve charged the full retail price so that they could hand back even more of your money to Rep. Rogers and other Republicans. Presumably, the Phoenix Co. is one of those companies showing big profits that Rep. Boehner gets all teary eyed about when we start talking about corporations and the top 0.01 percent paying more in taxes.
If you’d like to learn more about how you are being scammed each and every day by your military and the private companies that it supports you should read Rachel Maddow’s new book, “Drift: The Unmooring of the American Military.” She does a good job of describing how we’ve privatized our military to the degree that we have no idea who’s responsible for what anymore.
Maybe we do need to cut spending. If so, the first place to start is our military; and don’t shed a tear over it.
