Where the Money Goes

If we want to stop wars and get more jobs, we have to take the profit out of wars. We do this by nationalizing the arms production. By doing this, the government, our government, would control the so-called “military industrial complex,” as Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower called it. The U.S. Government’s military budget for 2019 is $686 billion, that is larger than the next top five countries: China at $168.2 billion, Saudi Arabia at $82.9 billion, Russia at $63.1 billion, India at $57.9 billion and the United Kingdom at $56.1 billion. The U.S. gives Israel military aid and sells armaments to Saudi Arabia. The 2020 U.S. military budget is expected to be $989 billion. Now imagine how much of this is spent on contractors, like Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, General Dynamics, and the others, and then add on the tax break trump has already given these corporations. How much of this money is actually going to protect us since the threats we face now aren’t all on the battle field. These contractors turn around and spend millions on lobbyists to not gain more contract money, but also to undo the laws put in place to rein in military contract spending. Our government could use the profit margin gone, these savings could be put to other uses. Our government would now be making what we need to protect ourselves, and the jobs would be steady and not dependent on wars. At this time, we have U.S. soldiers and mercenaries active in 80 countries (that we know about), which is half the planet and for the most part they are there defending corporate interests and the countries’ resources that are making these corporations richer while doing nothing for us back home. We need to convert the military industrial complex to actually do peace-time work. At this time, the military economy is a form of state capitalism whose relentlessly predatory effects have caused our economic decline. We have to eliminate unnecessary spending if we want to prevent any more wars. It is time to turn our country from the path of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness through force, manipulation and wars, but gain these ideals through peace, dignity and as full employment as we can get. There have been plans to do this, one was outlined in 1964 by Seymour Melman in the National Commission for Economic Conversion, which had labor unions’ support. The commission promoted public education related to economic conversion and disarmament. Among its most successful effort was “The U.S. After the Cold War: Claiming the Peace Dividend,” a national town meeting held in May 1990, involving political leaders, scholars, activists and concerned citizens. The Commission supported multilateral disarmament and comprehensive conversion policies. The commission board included members of the United States Congress, trade union presidents, scholars and political leaders. In addition to Melman, key board members included George McGovern, Ted Weiss, Marcus Raskin, John Kenneth Galbraith, and various presidents of the Machinists Union. Melman is the author of The Permanent War Economy and Pentagon Capitalism, he was an economist and writer.