TPM Reader JH follows up on the Gates’ new Pentagon budget and all the squawking from Republicans:
Keep up the good work! You are doing great work addressing concern about the non-existent DOD budget cuts as well as Republican double talk on the stimulative effect of defense spending.
That said, you are missing the elephant in the room that no one wants to address — namely, the fact that the DoD Appropriations and Authorizations bills are a stimulus bill, for a few, mainly red states, paid for by the rest of the nation.
Given this, it should come as no surprise that Senator Chambliss would notice the concentrated stimulative effects of defense spending as compared to non-defense stimulus spending that is more equitably dispersed throughout the nation.
The industrial infrastructure that ensured success in World War II — building airplanes at Detroit’s Willow Run airport, tanks at Detroit’s Warren tank yards as well as ships at the Brooklyn and Philadelphia naval yards has increasingly been moved to the South and West. This was a concious political decision made over decades by the DoD, powerful Southern legislators, and multiple presidential administrations. The effect is that the bulk of our remaining naval yards are found south of the Mason Dixon line, Lockheed Martin has significant facilities in Newt Gingrich’s old congressional district, while Texas and California are also home large numbers of defense contractors. …
Yes, Massachusetts, Maine, and Pennsylvania still have considerable defense industries, but on a per capita and dollar basis the bulk of DOD procurement (CA excepted) is in Southern and to a lesser extent Southwestern — aka red states. This is the result of decades of policy decisions.
Even more marked is the location of military bases. The Midwest and Northeast have one large Army or Marine installation — New York’s Ft. Drum. Chambliss’ Georgia has eight, Texas eight, North Carolina five, Alabama three, and Louisiana one. The parallels are similar for the Navy and Air Force. These factors are due in part to weather (in part) and the end of the cold war (the northern, strategic defense air bases, the first defense against the USSR are no longer needed) — regardless the result is the same: the bulk of DOD spending on bases goes to Southern states. …
Now, Senator Chambliss (along with the North Carolina, Texas, Mississippi, Alabama, Oklahoma and Florida delegations) might provide wholesale support DOD funding if it went disproportionally to Illinois, Wisconsin, Indiana, and Minnesota, but that is a hypothetical these Senators need not answer. Instead, they can remain intellectually dishonest advocating for trickle down economics and railing against “wasteful” social spending for the rest of us, while wrapping themselves in the flag and advocating for increased money for our troops that disproportionately benefits their states.
For too long too many have shamelessly used the DoD funding bills to pork-barrel for their home states while railing against any government spending that could make our economy more efficient and productive (not to mention just or equitable). It is long over-due that they were called on their fiscal and intellectual mendacity.
Keep up the good work.
