The Senate Healthcare Reform Bill and Defense Spending: The Will To Kill, But Not To Heal?

Introduction

In light of the President's mandate that the cost of the healthcare be paid for and that nothing be added to the federal deficit; as lawmakers hash out the final details of legislation to reform the nation's healthcare system, it remains to be seen whether those goals will be achievable. Nevertheless, while, approximately, $900 billion over ten years may sound like a hefty price tag, it is a mere fraction of this country's defense spending, which is expected to grow by at least $133.1 billion over the next decade.

What Are Our Priorities?

According to [Department of Defense] projections, the baseline military budget-just the basic defense spending, not those extra billions spent in fighting the wars in Iraq & Afghanistan-is projected to increase by 2.5% each year for the next 10 years. In other words, in the next decade the basic Pentagon budget will grow by at the least, the aforementioned $133.1 billion. Let us also consider the Pentagon's budget for 2010 alone is $704 billion.

To put that in perspective $59 billion will be spent on education and $50 billion on children's health insurance --- an according to the estimates of healthcare bill that is now being debated in the Senate, we will be spending anywhere from $85 to 90 billion annually over the next 10 years or so.

I Remember Ike

On January 17, 1961, President Dwight D. Eisenhower uttered these powerful words:

"This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence -- economic, political, even spiritual -- is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist."

Can we say now, here in 2009, that his admonition was heeded? On March 31, 2008, the GAO (Government Accountability Office) issued a review of dozens of the Pentagon's biggest weapons systems and concluded that ships, aircraft and satellites were (and they remain) billions of dollars over budget and years behind schedule.

The Government Accountability Office found that 95 major systems have exceeded their original budgets by a total of $295 billion, bringing their total cost to $1.6 trillion, and are delivered almost two years late on average. In addition, none of the systems that the GAO looked at had met all of the standards for best management practices during their development stages.

While being guilty of this malfeasance, the U. S. defense industry also drastically increased their spending on lobbying from 2007 to 2008. For example, defense contractor Northrop-Grumman spent $10.9 million lobbying Congress in 2007; in 2008 they spent $20.6 million; in 2007 Boeing spent $10.6 million; in 2008 they spent $16.6 million --- these same companies have also paid approximately $2.3 billion dollars in fines since 1995 because of misconduct.

What influence were they buying for all those millions? Who were (and are) they buying this influence from?

Let's examine a few examples of Pentagon waste and inefficiency:

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 been 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. And yet we spend.

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 past month, Congressional leaders authorized $2.5 billion for eight more --- this is the "what" in terms of influence bought, I will address the "who" in the next section.

Once again, these are only a few examples. 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. Contrast that information with the reality that according to an October 2009 study released by the Johns Hopkins Children's Center, lack of adequate health care may have contributed to the deaths of some 17,000 US children over the past two decades.

Additionally, another study has found that the uninsured are far more likely to have undiagnosed and under-treated medical conditions than those with coverage. Harvard University researchers found that half of uninsured people with diabetes were unaware of it, compared to just one-quarter of insured people who also didn't know they had diabetes.

The authors of the study say the disparities could help explain the findings of another recent study that found a lack of health insurance leads to around 45,000 deaths each year.

Nevertheless, far too many fume over the possibility of rampant spending when it comes to healthcare reform; far too many have been silent in the face of greater governmental waste when it comes to defense spending, and as mischaracterization leads to demonization the body count of the uninsured grows.

We, the United States, spend more money on defense than the next 45 highest spending countries in the world combined. Conversely, despite spending the most, the U.S., currently, does not provide health care coverage for approximately 46 million people --- in comparison, the same amount, that we spend, is enough to provide universal health care insurance by the government for all citizens in other countries such as Norway, Japan, Great Britain and Spain, to name a few.

Show Me The Money

Of every American tax dollar that is paid, 42.2 cents goes to defense/military spending (past and current military spending) --- an even with all that, as I have mentioned in a previous article, 1,461,615 veterans between the ages of 18 and 64 were uninsured in 2008.

It has to be realized that U.S. Congress is caught between a sweet rock (healthcare industry lobbyists) and a honey of hard place (defense industry lobbyists).

Now, getting back to the, aforementioned, "who" of the defense industry's Congressional objects of affection and influence: the 18 lawmakers who serve on the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense inserted, last year, 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.

Moreover, as the health care debate heated up in Washington, insurance and drug companies were (and are) keeping their lobbyists busy. So far this year, those industries have increased their lobbyist spending by 41% as they fight any proposed public insurance plan. That's $35 million in the first quarter for the 20 biggest companies and their trade groups-$10 million more than last year.

Are they expanding their lobbying budgets to be ignored? Do we actually believe that these companies have as their bottom line, what's good for society and the American people? How does this not make the U.S. Congress the best that money can buy?

Conclusion

I cannot understand why the voices of dissent, when it comes to government excess, are silent in the face of this type of greed and waste.

How long will we, as nation and society bow at the altar of greed and pay homage to the idol of corporatism? Why does it seem that financing for slaughter and destruction seems so easy to obtain, but funds for healing and health, appear to be, so elusive?

I would like to call our attention to another day and another time. This is part of the text from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s address delivered to the Clergy and Laymen Concerned about Vietnam, at Riverside Church on April 4, 1967 in New York City. His words still ring true today as they did forty-two years ago:

"I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented' society to a person-oriented' society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered."

Yes, when we can stomach the death of 45,000 Americans a year dying from lack of healthcare; when we can condescendingly acknowledge the real problems of healthcare and yet remain apathetic about real action to address those problems; when we can't bring ourselves to deem useless & wasteful weaponry as obsolete and yet seem perfectly capable of saying exactly that to millions of Americans without healthcare; when we allow a powerful and corrupt few to dictate the quality of life for millions, it appears that Dr. King's and President Eisenhower's sad and prophetic words have come to pass.

Sources:

The FY 2009 Pentagon Spending Request - Global Military Spending

Military Industrial Complex

National Priorities Notes and Sources: Trade-Offs Page

Military Industrial Complex Speech: Dwight D. Eisenhower (January 17, 1961)

GAO Blasts Weapons Budget: Washington Post; March 31, 2008

Federal Contractor Misconduct Database

Defense Industry Lobbies for Piece of A Smaller Pie: The Wall Street Journal; January 28, 2009

John Hopkins Children's Center

GAO Highlights: Assessments of Selected Weapons Programs; March 2009