Apparently, spending at the
Department of Defense is untouchable.
With cuts galore, the recent agreement has left the Pentagon with a 4.4
percent “raise” in 2014, reaching a total of just over $600 billion. One would have to ask “Why?”.
I think that I may have the
answer. Let’s start by looking at one
major American defense contractor, Raytheon, manufacturer of the Tomahawk
cruise missile. Let’s open by looking at
a few statistics about the Tomahawk:
Unit Cost:
1.) Current Production Cost:
$500,000
2.) Average Unit Cost: $1.4 million
($569,000 in FY 1999 dollars)
3.) Total Program Cost:
$11,210,000,000
Manufacturer:
1.) 2003 - Raytheon - $1.6 billion
for 2200 missiles
2.) 2006 - Raytheon - $346 million
for 473 missiles plus 65 submarine torpedos (Royal Navy)
3.) 2009 - Raytheon - $207 million
for 207 missiles
4.) 2012 - Raytheon - $338 million
for 361 missiles
That's a total of $2.491 billion
heading to Raytheon for a total of 3306 Tomahawk Block IV missiles at an
average cost of $755,290 each over the 10-year period. Apparently, there
are really big bucks involved when it comes to building and supplying high tech
flying military objects!
Now, let's look at what Raytheon has
been up to on the political front according to Open Secrets:
In 2012, Raytheon spend $7.45
million on lobbying, putting them in 54th place out of 4374 lobbyists. As
you can see on this bar graph, that's about on par from the totals spent in the
period from 2009 to 2011 but up from the earlier part of the new millennium:
Interestingly, one of the issues
that Raytheon lobbied on was the Bill that would have amended the Internal
Revenue Code of 1986 that would see an extension of the allowance for bonus
depreciation for certain business assets (i.e. a means to reduce the level of
corporate tax owing).
Not surprisingly, Raytheon has been
a heavy hitter when it comes to donating to individuals that sit on various
Congressional Committees during elections, particularly the Armed Services
Committee. In 2012, Raytheon's PAC spent a total of $385,850 on the House
($140,400 for the Democrats and $245,450 for the Republicans) and a total of
$142,350 on the Senate ($24,500 for the Democrats and $117,850 for the
Republicans).
As an aside, the folks sitting on
the Armed Services Committee are considered to be key to maintaining access to
government contracts. Just in case you wondered, here is a
listing of the sectors of the economy that contributed to Members of
this Committee during the 2014 election cycle:
Thus far in this cycle, the 58 House Members on
the Committee received an average of $35,103 from Raytheon's PAC and
$2,338 from Raytheon's individual donors.
Now, how did the Presidential
candidates benefit from Raytheon's largesse during the 2012 election cycle?
Raytheon donated a total of $2,227,950 to all candidates, $780,785 to
Leadership PACs and $416,514 to political parties. Mitt Romney was to top
individual recipient, raking in $143,806 from Raytheon. Barak Obama
received "only" $89,788 from Raytheon, putting him in second place
overall. Howard P. "Buck" McKeon (R - Calif) and Chairman of
the House Armed Services Committee also benefitted from Raytheon's generosity
to the tune of $24,000, putting him in fourth place among Raytheon's chosen
few.
Perhaps all of these lobbying and
donating fun and games have, after all, not been in vain. When you have the nation’s key decision
makers in your back pocket, the outcome of any vote on cutting the Department
of Defense budget is pretty much a given.
The system is so broke.....
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