Editor’s note: This commentary is by Ben Cohen, who is co-chair of Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign and the co-founder of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream.
At the start of his presidential campaign, Sen. Bernie Sanders invited me to co-chair his campaign. Before I accepted, we agreed to disagree about one issue: the stationing of F-35 jets in Burlington. Bernie is against obscene military spending, but he has stated that if the F-35s must be stationed somewhere, Vermont is OK. I’m of the opinion that F-35s shouldn’t be stationed anywhere, or exist, for that matter. But Bernie and I agreed to disagree because we both know that the only way to advance justice – economic, social, racial and environmental – is through the political revolution that Bernie’s campaign represents. There is no alternative path.
And that path to justice cuts through the military-industrial-congressional complex. And on that issue, Bernie and I are aligned. Congress has asked for $718 billion (that’s billion with a B) for next year’s defense budget, $33 billion more than this year. This isn’t including the added spending on nuclear weapons under the Department of Energy ($24.8 billion), on the Department of Veterans Affairs ($216 billion), on the portion of national debt generated by the Pentagon ($156 billion), and on homeland security ($69 billion), to name a few. That’s over $1 trillion (with a T) spent on defense by the United States in a single year. By comparison, the next seven highest-spending countries (China, Saudi Arabia, India, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and Germany) spent $609 billion combined. And many of those countries are trading partners and allies.
Meanwhile, our country fails to fund programs that have a direct impact on the lives and interests of the American people. A nation where over 38 million people live in poverty, over 27 million don’t have health insurance, 45 million are shouldering $1.5 trillion in student loan debt for the world’s most expensive higher education system, and still “can’t afford” to provide basic needs like universal health care, child care, parental leave and education, has no right spending such an astronomical sum on endless wars.
You might ask yourself, isn’t it necessary to spend this obscene amount of money for the sake of national security? No. The Pentagon’s own Defense Business Board (a name more on-the-nose than most government organizations) estimated that cutting unnecessary overhead, including a bloated bureaucracy and over 600,000 private contractors, would save $125 billion over five years.
For those looking to differentiate the gaggle of Democratic candidates, particularly on defense, it’s worth remembering two things. First, Bernie has consistently voted against Congress’ bloated defense budget, including funding for the F-35 program. Unlike Sens. Elizabeth Warren, Corey Booker, Kamala Harris, Amy Klobuchar, and Michael Bennet, as well as Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, who have all voted for one or more versions of the Defense Authorization Act in the past decade.
Second, Bernie has explicitly stated a desire to combat the military-industrial complex and stop the siphon of cash to private defense contractors as commander in chief. Few if any candidates have gone as far as Bernie on this issue. Even Gabbard has admitted she’s a hawk when it comes to wars against terrorism, which have proven to evolve into the regime change wars she claims to despise. Clarity and consistency set apart Bernie’s defense policy: no more endless wars.
I refuse to dismiss Bernie over a single disagreement. At the end of the day, we see that the political revolution will require us to face the Goliath that is the military-industrial complex head-on, and I firmly believe Bernie is the only one willing to throw that stone.
