Ben Freeman at Salon writes Don't fall for Pentagon spin:| If you believe the hype, sequestration is going to deal a catastrophic blow to the politically powerful defense industry.[...] The truth? We're watching a political magic trick. Right now, we're at the part of the show where it appears Congress and the President sawed through Pentagon contractors. They're moaning and complaining ' giving the audience a good show ' but fear not, contracts will be just fine. This is largely because of the rock solid foundation the industry is standing on. Every year for the last five years the Pentagon has doled out at least $360 billion to contractors. In fact, every year since the war in Afghanistan began contractors have received more than half of the Pentagon's total budget. In other words, contractors have received more taxpayer money than the Department of Defense's civilian employees and nearly 1.4 million active duty military personnel combined. All that money has really added up. So much so that Pentagon contractors are sitting on a backlog of contracts worth nearly as much as the entirety of Pentagon sequestration. In other words, even if contractors absorbed all of the Pentagon sequestration cuts, they'd still be on track to receive more than $300 billion a year in new contracts, which is more than double what any other country in the world spends on its military. Does any of this sound catastrophic? |
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